KANSAS CITY - So, is it going to be seven, eight or nine Big 12 teams getting into the NCAA Tournament this year?
 
That's the question we're going to hear a lot when all 10 schools converge on the Sprint Center in Kansas City on Wednesday.
 
"It's the best it's ever been, at least in the 15 years that I've been in the league, you can say from top to middle because there is no bottom," Kansas coach Bill Self said Monday morning. "And to think that 90 percent of the teams in our league have a legitimate shot of making the NCAA Tournament is pretty remarkable."
 
He's pretty close. Right now, just about everything you read heading into this week has 80 percent of the Big 12 doing some dancing this year.
 
Texas (18-13) helped itself immensely by beating West Virginia last Saturday afternoon and can breathe a little bit easier.
 
Kansas State (21-10) enhanced its profile with a 10-point home win over Baylor (18-13) and Oklahoma (18-12) got itself on much firmer ground with a Friday night victory against struggling Iowa State (13-17).
 
That means seven are now probably pretty solid right now - Kansas (24-7), Texas Tech (23-8), West Virginia (22-9), Kansas State, TCU (21-10), Oklahoma and now probably Texas.
 
Baylor is likely okay as the eighth team in and then there is Oklahoma State (18-13), which was  not among the 19 teams CBS Sports bracketologist Jerry Palm considers on his tournament bubble right now despite being one of the hottest teams in college basketball.
 
ESPN bracketlogist Joe Lunardi does have the Cowboys listed among his "First Four Out" though.
 
"I don't know that nine will make it, but I think there are nine teams deserving that do and depending upon what happens in other leagues, and how some of these teams play in Kansas City, that could be a determining factor," Self said. "Going into the conference tournaments across America you have to believe that nine from our league would be in at this point."
 
If you look simply at the data, Oklahoma State's biggest blemish is its RPI, which is actually much better at 87 heading into the Big 12 Tournament. The Cowboys' BPI is 58, which helps them get into the discussion.
 
Sweeping league champion Kansas also helps, as do their wins over Texas Tech and West Virginia. That's the biggest knock on the Big 12 - no dominant teams at the top.
 
Self said that's reflective of college basketball in general.
 
"The appearance of the best leagues are the ones that are top-heavy and bottom-heavy because you have Ws built in in most leagues," he explained. "In our league, you play poorly, you lose. I don't know that the teams at the top are as talented than maybe some of the teams that we've had in the past at the top, but all of the other teams are more talented."
 
The two guys most qualified to make outside comparisons - Jamie Dixon and Bob Huggins - continually point to the Big 12's depth as its most impressive attribute.
 
"I've been in some good ones, no question," Dixon said. "I was in what they considered the best, the Big East, and then the ACC when they all came together. But this one has been the toughest when you look at the top to the bottom."
 
In 2009, Dixon's Pitt team was one of three NCAA Tournament one-seeds from the Big East (Connecticut and Louisville the others), but there was clearly a bottom to the Big East that year as well.
 
"The one year (the Big East) got 11 in, the five other teams really didn't beat any of the 11 teams, so that was a factor in it," he said.
 
Huggins agrees.
 
"The Big East had a bottom," he said. "There were five or six teams that you were supposed to beat and if you were a middle-of-the-pack team you played two of those twice. If you were a West Virginia or a Pitt, we played each other twice every year and then you played another really good team twice.
 
"They did a great job of trying to make sure they had as many teams in the NCAA Tournament as they deserved to get into the NCAA Tournament, but it had a bottom."
 
Iowa State and Oklahoma occupies that position in the Big 12. The Cowboys by far have the most to lose when the Bedlam Series moves here for Part III on Wednesday night. The Cowboys must win to remain alive, and it's probably a good idea for Oklahoma to win, too, to get itself on firmer ground.
 
It's also probably a good idea for Texas to beat Iowa State, although that's never a slam dunk in KC considering the Sprint Center is going to be transformed into Hilton Coliseum South when the two teams meet on Wednesday night.
 
And, it would help Baylor's cause by beating West Virginia on Thursday night to confidently punch its ticket.
 
As for the NCAA Tournament locks, Kansas could either meet a team that swept it twice (Oklahoma State) or a team possessing of the most dynamic player in the country (Oklahoma).
 
You can flip a coin in the Kansas State-TCU game.
 
Like Iowa State, the Wildcat fans will come out in full force for the opening game of the Thursday afternoon session. Last year, Dixon demonstrated to Big 12 basketball fans what those in the Big East and ACC already knew - the dude can coach, particularly in one-and-done, tournament settings.
 
The same goes for Huggins, who, despite going through a five-year stretch of one-and-dones in conference tournament play following the Mountaineers' Final Four season in 2010, owns a sparkling 42-19 record in conference tournament games and has led WVU to the Big 12 tournament championship game the last two years.
 
And then there is Texas Tech, one of the most dangerous teams in the Big 12 when all of its players are healthy, facing a possible matchup against Texas in the third quarterfinal game Thursday.
 
All bets are usually off whenever those two in-state rivals meet.
 
That means just about any team could leave Kansas City this weekend with the conference championship trophy sitting on its bus. Kansas is the favorite, of course, but the Jayhawks have lost five times in conference play this year and showed last year they are not bullet-proof in Kansas City.
 
The two second-place teams, Texas Tech and West Virginia, have lost a combined 14 times and fourth-place Kansas State has eight defeats.
 
That's 27 losses among the top four teams in the deepest conference in America.
 
If that's not a prescription for excitement, I don't know what is.
 
"You can play really good basketball and be on the short end of a one or two-possession game," Baylor's Scott Drew said. "It's not anything you did wrong; it's the other team was a little bit better. That's what you have this year from top to bottom."
 
Or as Self says, from top to middle.
 
One thing is abundantly clear, some really good basketball teams are going to have short stays in Kansas City.
 
The wrong ones could mean only seven make this year's NCAA Tournament, but the right ones will push that number to eight, and possibly even nine come Selection Sunday.