Back to back: Lady Bear basketball claims second straight Big 12 Conference title

The only undefeated team in Division-I basketball (men’s or women’s), the unanimous No. 1 team in the country for most of the season, and now the Big 12 Conference champions for the second year in a row. That’s head coach Kim Mulkey’s Baylor women’s basketball team.

The Lady Bears defeated Texas Tuesday night, 80-59, to improve to 28-0 on the season and clinch the 2011-12 Big 12 championship outright. The title comes after Baylor won both the Big 12 regular season and tournament championships last year en route to the Elite Eight.

[The official 2012 Lady Bears Big 12 Champs t-shirt, seen at right, is now available from the Baylor Bookstore.]

The numbers are incredible. Entering tonight’s game, the Lady Bears led the nation in field-goal percentage and field-goal percentage defense; over their last 70 games, they’ve gone 66-4; and they’ve won 39 straight in the Ferrell Center, dating back to March 2009.

Tuesday’s win also gave Baylor a clean sweep of Texas for the year in the “big three” sports (football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball) — a first in BU athletics history. In fact, Bear fans have seen all three sports among the top 25 in the nation now for the last 15 weeks, a run of success that prompted this excellent in-depth article, “Baylor Rising,” in the new issue of Sports Illustrated.

The Lady Bears have three regular season games remaining: Friday at Kansas (6:30 p.m., FSN), Monday at Texas A&M (6 p.m., ESPN2) and March 3 at home against Iowa State for Senior Day (11 a.m., FSN). They’ll then head to Kansas City as the No. 1 seed for the 2012 Big 12 tournament, March 7-10; tickets for both the final home game and the conference tournament are now available if you’d like to see your Lady Bears in action again before March Madness hits.

Sic ’em, Big 12 champion Lady Bears!