OKLAHOMA CITY – Day two saw three of the top-four seeds stumble. Only No. 3 Missouri survived.

On day four, the Tigers used their depth to avoid No. 9 Baylor’s third-straight upset bid with a 73-60 win and were crowned Big 12 Champions for the first time in school history Saturday.

“Coach [Mike] Anderson has been nothing but honest with us saying he is going to bring a championship to this school,” said senior Matt Lawrence. “Not many people believed him except those 14 guys in the locker room and our coaching staff too.”

Believe it, Missouri is your 2009 Big 12 Champion – at Baylor’s expense.

Four games in four days for Cinderella, and a chance to go dancing proved to stressful down the stretch for a Baylor team that needed a win to reach the NCAA Tournament.

Missouri turned up the pressure to start the second half, and went on a 10-4 run in the opening five minutes to grab control of the game and open up an 11-point lead. Baylor didn’t have enough steam left from their wins over No. 1 seed Kansas and No. 5 seed Texas to climb the hill.

“I think physical fatigue is always one thing, but I think what we all forget is mental fatigue,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. “When you get mentally tired you don’t operate as well either.”

So, was Missouri and its famous “40 minutes of Hell” defense, the worst possible match up for Baylor in its fourth game?

“Yes. You want me to elaborate or you good with that?” Drew said jokingly. “We don’t mind playing fast and like that, but I don’t know if we had – our advantage was inside, and I don’t know if we had enough in the tank to do that non-stop.”

The Tigers had plenty left in the tank after cruising to wins over No. 11 seed Texas Tech and No. 7 seed Oklahoma State the two previous nights. Their depth didn’t hurt either.

“I have been at a program where you have to go four games in four days and that’s tough, especially to play against a team such as the Missouri Tigers in terms of how we play,” Anderson said. “I thought the tournament format plays into our hand, especially with the depth.”

Depth helped offensively too. The Tigers got offensive contributions from eight players in the game, including freshmen Kim English (7 pts.) and Miguel Paul (3 pts.), who Anderson praised as a big reason for the program’s success.

Yet nobody scored more points than senior leader DeMarre Carroll. He led Missouri with 20 points and nine rebounds en route to being named the tournament’s MVP.

Carroll, since transferring to Missouri before the 2006-07 season, has been instrumental in helping turn around a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2004-05. He was named Big 12 newcomer of the year in 2007-08 but did that after being shot in the ankle in a night club in July of 2007. He struggled with losing and his coach said, “we had some storms, man. We had a lot of storms.”

Now he is a first team all-conference, first team all-academic, tournament MVP, and has a Big 12 Championship.

“My uncle told me to keep having faith and the light is going to come up—the sun will come up at the end,” Carroll said. “I got shot. We lost games and so on. Look at me now. I’m standing here smiling with a Big 12 Championship.”

One last goal – An NCAA Championship. At No. 14 in the AP poll before the conference championship win and with many of the teams that were being considered for top seeds losing, Missouri could be poised for a solid seed and a deep tournament run.

“We showed that we are a team that can play in a tournament-style atmosphere and do well,” Lawrence said. “We will try and do it well again next week.”

Next week’s competition, however, could be a bit tougher. Missouri lucked out by getting to play the No. 11, No. 7, and No. 9 seeds in the Big 12 Tournament. The Tigers find out their seed at 5 p.m. Sunday on CBS.

“Four years we have been through all ups and downs,” said senior Leo Lyons. “We have seen this program when it was at its worst and best and that’s right now. We want to continue to keep it going and take it as far as we can to end our senior year.”