The Baylor U.  Lady Bears have watched the tape and seen the numbers. They know their Final Four opponent, U. Connecticut, has won 76 straight games and outscored opponents by an average of 47 points in the NCAA tournament.

It makes no difference to the youth-laden Baylor, who takes on the Huskies Sunday in Baylor’s second-ever Final Four appearance.

“We are going to do like everybody else does. We are going to toss it up and just play. Just go out there and do the best you can,” coach Kim Mulkey said at the Lady Bears’ Final Four media day.

Baylor has already overcome the odds to upset No. 1 Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen and erase a six-point deficit in 3:47 to topple Duke. Preparing for a Connecticut squad that has intimidated many opponents before meeting them on the court, the Lady Bears focus solely on their own team.

“We have to start with us. We can’t be intimidated. This is the biggest game in our basketball history,” junior guard Melissa Jones said.

In fact, the team embraces each chance to play the best teams in college basketball. On Sunday Baylor plays two of the nation’s best in first-team All Americans Maya Moore and Tina Charles.

Moore, a 6-foot junior forward, edges Charles to lead the team in scoring with 18.4 per game. She has also nailed 74 3-pointers and shoots 40 percent from behind the arc.

Charles leads the Huskies’ inside attack as a 6-foot-4 senior post. She hauls in an average 9.4 rebounds per game while blocking 85 shots, giving Griner her greatest collegiate challenge yet.

“I feel like it’s going to do nothing but make me better,” Griner said. “To go against an All-American and somebody like Tina Charles is just going to help me in the long run.”

Griner’s supporting cast also knows the job it must do to give the Lady Bears a chance on Sunday.

“It’s going to be fun playing UConn, the No. 1 seed. They have to get beat one day, and why not Sunday?” freshman Jordan Madden said.

Madden and Griner, along with Kimetria Hayden and Shanay Washington, have produced 50 percent of the Lady Bears’ points as freshmen. With the unpredictable nature of young players on big stages, Baylor faces a challenge in the consistent shooting from Connecticut, who has hit 53 percent from the field in the tournament.

“They are pretty good. We just have to keep our heads strong and don’t overlook ourselves. We are going to stay with them,” Hayden said.

Whether she wanted to or not, Mulkey had to call on her freshmen and sophomores to perform all season, especially when a stress reactor sidelined Jones for much of the conference season. Mulkey used nine different starting rotations, including Hayden and sophomores Terran Condrey, Ashley Field and Lindsey Palmer, to help get Baylor where it currently stands.

Now the Lady Bears enter this weekend playing as a full team, healthy and baptized by fire. Connecticut has no plans for losing, but neither does the upstart Baylor team.

“That doesn’t mean we are just going to go out there and give up and start waving the flags,” Mulkey said.

Baylor will host a send-off for the Lady Bears at the Lt. Jack Whetsel Jr. Practice Facility at the Ferrell Center on Thursday at 4:45 p.m.