The NCAA Tournament is expected to expand to 76 teams, NCAA proposes a rule change to ban players after opting in and remaining in the draft, and Geno Auriemma lashes out at Dawn Staley.
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NCAA Tournament Expected to Expand to 76 Teams
Money. Money. Money.
College basketball fans didn't ask for it, and neither did the majority of coaches and players. However, money talks, and the NCAA is expected to expand March Madness from 68 teams to 76 as early as 2027, according to Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger.
Barring something unforeseen, “it will happen,” says one high-placed source.
According to a proposal socialized with members last year, eight games would be added to the current “First Four” played over Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week of the event. This new “opening round” — the verbiage used to describe it — would feature 24 teams playing in 12 games over the two days at two sites (Dayton and another). Those involved in the negotiations caution that plenty of this could change through the course of continuing talks with TV partners Warner Bros. Discovery and CBS.
The 12 winners of the opening-round games — likely six games pitting lower-seeded automatic qualifiers and six pitting at-large teams — advance to an awaiting 52 teams in the original bracket. Under this concept, eight teams are extracted from the main bracket, plus the eight new at-large selections from expansion.
Whether we like it or not, this will likely mean more mediocre high-major teams rather than mid-major programs.
NCAA president Charlie Baker believes that giving more high-major teams a chance is a net positive, as evidenced by No. 11 seeds Texas and Miami (Ohio), who proved it in their own respective ways over the last couple of weeks.
“There are every year some really good teams that don’t get to the tournament for a bunch of reasons,” Baker said last fall. “One of the reasons is we have 32 automatic qualifiers [for conference champions]. I love that and think it’s great and never want that to change, but that means there’s only 36 slots left for everybody else.”
The NCAA Tournament has expanded over the last nine decades, but has done so more rapidly over the last 15 years, much like it did in the 1979-80 season.
- 1939: The tournament started with eight teams
- 1951: Expanded to 16
- 1975: Expanded to 32
- 1979: Expanded to 40
- 1980: Expanded to 48
- 1985: Expanded to 64
- 2001: Expanded to 65
- 2011: Expanded to 68, introducing the "First Four"
For what it's worth, the bubble teams this season, who barely missed the NCAA Tournament but will surely make it if it expands by six teams yet again, included Auburn (17-16), Indiana (18-14), New Mexico (23-10), Oklahoma (19-15) and San Diego State (22-11).
