lost to Rice University. Championships 2012: "The Year of the Bear" The Year of the Bear (in Baylor parlance, Añodeloso, a takeoff of the popular Diadeloso festival) is the name given to the 2011–2012 year in Baylor Athletics. The year started out on a potentially ominous note due to the turmoil surrounding the Big 12 Conference after it lost its third member in two years (by the end of the year, it would lose a fourth member) and the real potential for the conference to disband. Baylor was not being considered by any major conference as a potential member due to its poor overall football performance as a Big 12 member (the 2010 season was the first year that the program finished at .500 in conference play, and only the second time that it had not finished last or tied for last in its division), along with being a small religious private school. But the Year of the Bear would start with an upset when the Baylor Bears football team defeated former Southwest Conference rival (and later Big 12 rival) TCU (which was coming off an undefeated season and No. 2 ranking the prior year) 50–48. The win would catapult junior quarterback Robert Griffin III into the Heisman spotlight. The Bears finished the season at 10–3 (at that time, tied for the most wins in school history) and a No. 12 final ranking, with six straight wins to close the season, including another upset along the way – this against then No. 5 Oklahoma, a program it had never defeated in 20 previous tries – and a win in the 2011 Valero Alamo Bowl led by Griffin, who won the 2011 Heisman Trophy and National Player of the Year honors. While the football team finished strong, the men's and women's basketball teams started strong. The men's team would start with 17 straight wins en route to a 30–8 season (the best in school history), a berth in the NCAA Elite Eight (its second in three seasons) and a No. 10 final ranking. The women's team would win the program's second national title, becoming the first basketball program – men's or women's – to finish 40–0. Center Brittney Griner would win National Player of the Year while coach Kim Mulkey would win National Coach of the Year. The baseball team would win 49 games (one shy of its all-time best), including