INDIANAPOLIS – The end of Baylor’s remarkable, uplifting redemption story will be told on the final night of the season. Resilient when they fell behind, determined when they got the lead, the Lady Bears are going to the national championship game.

Baylor got 21 points from Sophia Young and major contributions from Emily Niemann and Abiola Wabara to beat LSU 68-57 last night in an impressive Final Four debut for a program that once was the worst in the Big 12.

The Lady Bears (32-3) will take a 19-game winning streak – the longest one going in NCAA women’s basketball – into the title game tomorrow night against Michigan State.

LSU (33-3),seeded no.1 overall in the NCAA tournament, jumped out to an early 15-point lead, but the Lady Bears came storming back to tie it at halftime. The Lady Tigers, who looked restless at times on offense, also failed to hold onto a six-point lead in the second half.

Baylor just wouldn’t go away and went ahead to stay when Chelsea Whitaker, who had eight turnovers in the regional finals against North Carolina, sank two free throws for a 52-51 lead with 6:17 remaining.

Young then picked off an LSU pass into the post and Baylor capitalized with Wabara’s 3-point play for a 55-51 lead. When Young hit a jumper 30 seconds later, Baylor led 57-51 and the Lady Bears had the cushion they needed to hang on down the stretch.

Not even national player of the year Seimone Augustus could save LSU, which missed too many shots against Baylor’s 3-2 zone and faltered at the end.

Augustus scored 22 points but shot just 10-for-26 and was 0-for-4 from 3-point range. Sylvia Fowles, LSU’s muscular 6-foot-5 freshman, added 13 points and 12 rebounds, and Temeka Johnson had 14 points and seven assists.

But it just wasn’t enough against Baylor’s defense – the Lady Bears have won 76 games in a row when holding opponents under 59 points.

Mulkey-Robertson has needed just five years to get Baylor to the biggest game in the program’s history. After a long tenure as an assistant at Louisiana Tech, she moved to Baylor in 2000, inheriting a program that had gone 7-20 the season before.

The Lady Bears won 21 games in her first season and they’ve been on the rise ever since.

For a while, though, they looked lost in this one. Baylor trailed 24-9, but Mulkey-Robertson, a feisty point guard in her playing days, kept encouraging, pleading, and cajoling, and the Bears fought back.

They tied it at 28 at halftime, only to fall behind 47-41 when Johnson, LSU’s super-charged 5-foot-3 point guard, drove for a basket midway through the second half. But the Lady Bears answered quickly.

Blackmon, who usually teams with Young in a formidable inside combination, was quiet in this one with only seven points. But her bucket and 3-point play highlighted a 9-2 run that sent Baylor into a 50-49 lead.

Fowles countered with two free throws to put LSU back in front with 6:54 to play, but that was the last time the Lady Tigers would lead. Whitaker made her two free throws, and the Lady Bears started to pull away.

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Michigan State’s climb to national prominence took over Rocky Top.

The Spartans rallied from a 16-point Tennessee 68-64 last night, setting up a title game with Baylor, another unlikely championship contender.

Trailing 45-29 with 16:02 left, Michigan State wouldn’t quit and finally caught the Lady Vols at 62-62 on two free throws by Victoria Lucas-Perry with 1:20 left. Moments later, Michigan State point guard Kristin Haynie made a steal and layup to put the Big Ten champions ahead.

Tennessee’s Loree Moore then tied it with a runner in the lane, but Spartans senior center Kelli Roehrig scored underneath to make it 66-64 with 35 seconds to play.

The Lady Vols (30-5) then missed a 3-pointer and two inside shots before the ball dropped in the hands of Roehrig, who fed Lucas-Perry for a layup with 2.7 seconds left to complete the remarkable comeback.

Michigan State’s rally tied the largest in Final Four history. In 2001, Notre Dame came back from 16 down to beat Connecticut. As the final horn sounded the Spartans (33-3) danced and hugged in a circle.

“This team has the heart of a lion,” Michigan State coach Joanne P. McCallie said, her players bouncing and hugging with looks of disbelief on their faces. “In the first half, we didn’t quite play with all of that heart.”

Just four years ago, Michigan State wasn’t even among the best teams in its conference. But McCallie, the AP’s coach of the year this season who turned tiny Maine into a national power, recruited Haynie and Roehrig and got the rest of the Spartans to believe.

Tennessee, meanwhile, had another solid season end in disbelief and a victory shy of a seventh national title. Despite making their fourth straight Final Four appearance and 16th overall under coach Pat Summitt, the Lady Vols haven’t won a national title since 1998.