Over the final thirteen games of the conference season, the Baylor Bears mustered just three wins while steadily dropping to the bottom of the league standings. But in only three days of the Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City, those same Bears have reeled off just as many wins and are now a step away from doing the unthinkable — claiming four victories in four days to steal the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

When Coach Scott Drew led last year’s team to the Big Dance, it was the first appearance for the Baptists from the Brazos in 20 years. After an offseason in which the Bears added highly-touted freshmen Quincy Acy and Anthony Jones, the preseason polls had tabbed them as third-best in the conference. But after that brutal 13-game stretch which began in late January, this Baylor team was being mentioned in “biggest disappointment” discussions with the likes of Georgetown and Notre Dame. It wasn’t just the NCAA tournament that was off the radar for this scuttling team. There were doubts as to if they could even to slip into the NIT.

And that’s the beauty of March. With three days of inspired basketball and a storyline that seems like something out of a Disney movie, the embattled Bears are on the brink of something spectacular. But standing in their way are the Missouri Tigers, the other feel-good story of the Big 12 this season. After a year filled with off-court distractions, player dismissals and a disappointing record, they were again picked in the bottom half of the league during preseason polling. But the Tigers defied all odds, upset bitter rival Kansas at home in the Border War, finished a surprising third in the conference, and even ascended to the Top 10 in national polls.

Today’s game will be an interesting case study in which team can impose its will upon the other. Both squads are fantastic ball handlers and turn it over less than 18% of the time, putting them both in the top sixty nationally. But the Tigers are one of the best squads around when it comes to pressuring the basketball and forcing mistakes. Will Mike Anderson‘s team be able to shake up the Bears and gobble up a solid chunk of points off of turnovers? Or will this be a well-controlled game whose winner is the one that plays the smartest, most efficient game?

One huge factor in the outcome could be the fatigue level of the Bears, who have played one more game than the Tigers this week. With Missouri loving to play an up-tempo style, there is a good chance that the Baylor players could get hit with dead legs late in the game. Kevin Rogers, who has averaged 14.7 points per game in the tournament, has also played nearly 37 minutes per game. Curtis Jerrells, the other senior leader in Baylor’s starting five, has played 34 minutes per game over the last three days. While the Missouri starters ate up a lot of minutes last night, the Tigers are a very well-conditioned team that can easily run 10 deep on the bench. If it’s a close game in the final minutes, this could be the deciding factor.

One way for Baylor to mitigate that disadvantage would be to jump out to a big early lead and get the crowd behind the underdogs. With the way Missouri has played the last two nights, that is a distinct possibility. The Tigers looked to be sleepwalking through their quarterfinal against Texas Tech before pulling away in the second half, and they shot just 25.8% in the first twenty minutes against Oklahoma State. Missouri is a team that will score in bunches, to if the Bears can take advantage of another slow start, it will give them the added cushion they’ll need to withstand those Tiger streaks.