By Championship Week standards, there isn't a whole lot going on at the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City.

Sure Kemper Arena is going to be jammed and it's going to be loud in the final tournament there before the tournament moves to Dallas. Sure, there's going to be great atmosphere and getting a beer at Harpo's is going to be a challenge.

But as far as actual basketball goes, it's pretty quiet.

Six Big 12 teams -- Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech and Missouri -- are locks for the NCAA Tournament. Nobody has to play their way in like Oklahoma State did a year ago. None of the other six teams really appears to have the ability to win four games in four days for the automatic berth.

In other words, not a whole lot is going to happen.

Really, the only upper division team with anything tangible to gain is Oklahoma. While Kansas, Duke and Maryland -- the nation's top three teams all season -- are locks for No. 1 seeds, the Sooners are competing with Cincinnati for the last top seed in the NCAA tournament.

Sooners coach Kelvin Sampson isn't overly concerned with trying to land the top seed in the West as he knows the worst case scenario after a 24-4 regular season is a No. 2 seed.

"Our next goal is that we'd like to win the Big 12 tournament and defend our title," Sampson said. "We have a chance to be a 1 seed. I'm going to tell the kids, 'Why run away from it? How many chances do you get to do that?'"

With Conference USA's championship game on Saturday and the Big 12 title game late Sunday afternoon, the decision of the final top seed very well may not hinge on the Sooners winning the league title.

An interesting aside to the race for the final No. 1 seed is that Sooners senior forward Aaron McGhee played for the Bearcats in 1999. McGhee, one of the most improved players in the Big 12, transferred to a junior college so the Bearcats could have a scholarship for DerMarr Johnson.

The other question entering the tournament is whether Kansas can pull the complete sweep of the league. The Jayhawks already finished the regular season 16-0, but can the top seed win three more games and the tournament title. While no one has figured out how do defeat the Jayhawks, Kansas has had three tight games on the road in the last month. First was an overtime victory at Texas followed by a one-point win at Nebraska and Sunday's three-point victory over Missouri.

So far this season, Kansas has been extremely difficult to stop and the balanced Jayhawks offense seems to get to the 90-point mark every time it plays.

"To beat them, you have to outscore them because they're tough to stop," Sampson said. "But that's tough to do because they guard.

"This is the eighth year I've seen Roy's team play and this is his most dangerous team."

Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, however, is of the belief that defense is the key.

"Kansas is a supurb offensive team and it's going to be difficult for anyone to slow them," Knight said. "(In the postseason), every aspect of defensive play is paramount when it's one game and out. Being difficult to score against is important * Games are going to be won because of defense."

Jeff Shelman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune is a regular contributor to ESPN.com