The Big 12 for several years has been considered the deepest and toughest conference in America despite KU winning it so often. Everyone not on a Kentucky message board considers it to be far and away the best conference in America this year.
And in the last, what 14-15 years, only KU and OU have made the F4 (and OU got blown out). KU pulling a John Wooden is bad perception for the B12. It wouldn't surpise me to see KU lose again to a lower seed.