Fival Goes East: How Baylor Basketball Won the Program’s First Big 12 Title

Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports As time ran out for Scott Drew hopped on Mark Vital’s back to celebrate Baylor’s 94-89 win over West Virginia to clinch Baylor’s first conference title since 1950—so long ago that the Korean War had not begun. Baylor is the first non-Kansas team to win an outright Big 12 title since 2004.

Coming off a 21 day COVID pause, Baylor hadn’t looked like Baylor in its two return games. They trailed Iowa State, a winless Big 12 team, by 15 points. Kansas, a squad Baylor blitzed by eight points in January, beat Baylor by 13 on Saturday.

With eight players contracting COVID in February, the question remained: would Baylor ever get back to what it was? That question became…