INDIANAPOLIS - The agony lives on for Tennessee. Another season of accolades and awards has again ended without a seventh NCAA title for coach Pat Summitt and her Lady Vols.

And this time, Connecticut had nothing to do with it.

Michigan State, a Final Four rookie, staged a frenzied, record-tying comeback Sunday night, rallying from 16 points down in the second half to stun Tennessee 68-64.

The Spartans' astonishing resurrection capped an evening of truly improbable comebacks in the RCA Dome.

Shortly after Baylor stormed back from a 15-point deficit to topple LSU in the first semifinal, the Spartans one-upped the Lady Bears, setting up a championship on Tuesday night between emerging programs and title-game neophytes as green as their common school color.

"It's an all-green national championship," said Michigan State coach Joanne P. McCallie, who in just five years has raised the Spartans from Big Ten also-ran to a national player. "We're very excited about that."

Tennessee's loss was equally devastating for Summitt, who earlier this season became the winningest coach in college basketball history. For now, though, she's stuck at 882 career wins and hasn't won a national title since 1998 - an eternity for the Lady Vols.

"It will be a long time before I get this out of my system and I'm sure the players probably feel the same way," she said.

This was the first time since 2000 that UConn wasn't responsible for Tennessee's premature exit from the tournament. The Huskies beat the Lady Vols three times in the finals and once in the semifinals.

The Spartans (33-3) don't mind playing spoiler this year: Their climb to national prominence has taken them all the way over Rocky Top. Even Summitt, whose sentimental record-setting season came to a crashing end, was impressed.

"You have to give Michigan State credit," Summitt said. "They had the composure and we lacked it at times and they made the defensive plays. And I thought again we were on our heels. I don't understand it, because it's not the way we have played all year."

Michigan State's rally tied the largest in Final Four history. In 2001, Notre Dame came back from 16 down to beat Connecticut.

All season long, Michigan State's players pointed toward Indy with "Driven" as their fitting motto. And just when it appeared hopeless, the Spartans pushed until the end in a city where speed is paramount.

"We just hung in there and stayed together," said senior guard Kristin Haynie, whose steal and layup in the closing seconds will live in Spartans history. "We kept our composure and our team gave all its heart at the end."

Like a true champion.

"This team has the heart of a lion," McCallie said.

Trailing 45-29 with 16:02 left, Michigan State wouldn't go away and finally caught the Lady Vols at 62-62 on two free throws by Victoria Lucas-Perry with 1:20 left. Moments later, Haynie cut off a passing lane, stole the ball and drove for a layup to put the Big Ten champions ahead.

"That's one of the greatest steals I've ever seen in my life," McCallie said. "She was about 6 feet ahead of the pass."

After Haynie's basket, Tennessee's Loree Moore tied it with a runner, but Spartans senior center Kelli Roehrig, who badly missed a couple of easy shots earlier, 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.

The Spartans' last two baskets were their only fast-break points of the night.

The Spartans danced and hugged in a circle as the final horn sounded. McCallie said it wouldn't take long for her to get started preparing for the Lady Bears.

"By Midnight," she said. "Baylor's a fantastic team, and they had a terrific game also, and we're very excited, and midnight, we got 'til about midnight."

Just four years ago, Michigan State wasn't even among the best teams in its conference. In 2000, McCallie's first year, the Spartans won only 10 games. But McCallie, the AP's coach of the year who once turned tiny Maine into a national power, recruited Haynie and Roehrig and got the rest of the Spartans to believe.

Now they're one win away from a national title, something the school's men's team couldn't do this weekend in St. Louis.

Lindsay Bowen had 18 points, and Lucas-Perry and Liz Shimek 14 apiece for the Spartans, who have won 17 straight.

Freshman Alexis Hornbuckle had 16 points and Indiana native Shanna Zolman added 13 for the Lady Vols, who appeared in control in the second half before their uncharacteristic fold.

"We've been talking about winning the national championship since the start of the season," said senior Shyra Ely, whose final game came in her hometown. "It would've been a great honor to win in Indiana, but it wasn't meant to be."

Baylor's Kim Mulkey-Robertson acted against her principles. Is she ever glad she did.The Lady Bears were trailing LSU and Mulkey-Robertson was searching frantically for a solution. For her, it was a desperate response: She put her team in a zone defense.And it worked.Baylor slowed LSU down, made one of the biggest comebacks in Final Four history Sunday and moved into Tuesday night's national championship game with a 68-57 victory. And Mulkey-Robertson was smiling all the way."No, I'm not a zone coach," she said. "But I damn sure like to win."Baylor (32-3) rallied from 15 points down in the first half to beat the team that was seeded No. 1 overall in the NCAA tournament, a talented opponent that featured the nation's best player (Seimone Augustus) and maybe the best point guard (Temeka Johnson).One more victory and the Lady Bears are national champions - a remarkable achievement for a program that only five years ago was the worst in the Big 12 and had never been to the NCAA tournament.Even the Baylor players are having a hard time grasping exactly what they've achieved."We're still living a dream and it's still unreal to us," Baylor's Chelsea Whitaker said. "I can't believe we're in this position, but I am thankful for it and it's amazing. I'm speechless. I can't believe that I'm playing here."More unbelievable is the fact that Baylor had only the second-best comeback of the night. Michigan State stormed back from 16 down in the second half against six-time national champion Tennessee to win 68-64 and move into the title game against the Lady Bears.If that one is anything like Sunday's games, hold on everyone. You're going to be in for a ride."You get down 15 and I'm looking at my coaches going, `We're getting embarrassed on national television,'" Mulkey-Robertson said. "I challenged my players and once again, what warriors they are. This is something else."That goes for Baylor's entire tournament run, which has focused some welcome positive attention on a school and community stained by the shooting death men's basketball player Patrick Dennehy two years ago and the subsequent disclosure of NCAA violations in that program."It's the past, so we really don't dwell on it anymore," said Sophia Young, who led Baylor with 21 points and 10 rebounds. "Right now, we are just trying to be the shining light of Baylor and also to the Waco community."Baylor also got big contributions from Emily Niemann (14 points) and Abiola Wabara (12 points, five rebounds). Wabara, also a key figure in the defense against Augustus, was a difference-maker after playing only 6 minutes when the two teams met in October. LSU won that one 71-70 after blowing a 21-point first half lead.Anybody notice a pattern here?"Things just didn't fall the way we wanted them to fall," Augustus said. "As far as the team goes, I thought we had a pretty good chance to win the title. To a certain extent, I felt we gave it away. We just didn't fight. They had the fight in their eyes and we didn't."Augustus led all scorers with 22 points, but Baylor made her work. She settled for jumpers instead of taking the ball to the basket and made only 10 of 26 shots.Baylor's defense was so effective that only three other LSU players scored - Johnson with 14, Sylvia Fowles with 13 and Scholanda Hoston with eight."We have a quote in our locker room that says you don't always get what you want, you get what you earn," LSU coach Pokey Chatman said. "I don't think our kids did enough to earn it. We got beat in the paint, we got beat in execution and that right there was the ballgame."LSU executed early, going on a 19-2 run to open a 24-9 lead. Then came a complete reversal. LSU tightened things up defensively and came back with a 19-4 burst to tie it at halftime. In a little more than 7 minutes, Baylor was back."We didn't panic," Wabara said. "We just needed to get our defense going, stop the ball and wait for our offense to get going."LSU pulled back ahead 47-41 on Johnson's driving shot midway through the second half, then flamed out again. This time, it was an 18-4 Baylor run that included eight points by Wabara. That made it 59-51 and the Lady Bears had the cushion they needed to hold on.Not long after that, Mulkey-Robertson was pumping two fists toward the celebrating Baylor fans."A lot of people really doubted us, but we took their challenge and really rose to the occasion," Baylor's Chameka Scott said. "This win really sums up the Baylor team this season. This is what we came to do."