Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
-
Jeff Borzello
Multiple authors
It’s finally official: The NCAA is here Expanding men’s and women’s basketball tournaments Eight teams in the new field of 76 are set to take effect immediately this coming season.
Of the 68 teams in last season’s tournament, 31 were automatic bids — each conference gets one — and 37 were at-large bids, which were chosen by the selection committee based on various metrics. The increase to 76 teams means 44 at-large bids will now be handed out, with 32 automatic bids required due to the Pac-12’s return.
This is the first expansion of the men’s tournament since 2011, when it increased from 65 to 68 teams. This is the largest expansion since 1985, when the field doubled from 32 to 64 teams.
The women’s tournament moved more recently, jumping to 68 teams in 2022 It has been a 64-team field since 1994, growing steadily in the decade since the first NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in 1982 (with 32 teams playing).
The latest expansion raises the question: What does this mean for the game of college basketball? Here’s what you need to know.
Go here: Men’s Braces
How will the eight additional teams be bracketed?
The first four are out, there is the opening round. 24 teams will now play 12 such games instead of eight teams in four games for a chance to advance to the Round of 64. Half of said teams will be the lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers, the remainder the lowest-seeded at-large teams.
The NCAA will visually present the new opening round at the top of the bracket, with the winners feeding into the classic 64-team field.
Here’s what the 76-team bracket will look like: pic.twitter.com/BmJsJZ7pOY
— Jeff Borzello (@JeffBorzello) May 7, 2026
When and where will the new ‘opening round’ be held?
On the men’s side, 12 games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday between qualifying Sunday and that Thursday when the round of 64 begins. Instead of scheduling two games per day in Dayton, as has been the case with the first four, Dayton will have three games per day and a second city will have three games per day yet to be determined. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports that the second site is expected to be west of the Eastern Time Zone for logistical support.
On the women’s side, the 12 opening round games will be played on Wednesday and Thursday through selection Sunday and Friday when the round of 64 begins – and across 12 of the campus sites designated as hosts for the first and second rounds.
What does this mean for bubbles and potential Cinderellas?
The bubble will be larger, allowing more teams to see a chance to advance to the final stage of their tournament season, partially shortening some of the “bubble elimination” games we’ve seen during champ week, when teams often face off for an at-large bid. And the biggest beneficiaries of the expansion will undoubtedly be the power conferences.
With the realignment, we’ve already seen teams that finish in the middle of the pack make the field, which will happen more frequently with more bids up for possession. For example, an Auburn team that finished 7-11 in the SEC and 17-16 overall was among the first four teams in the tournament last season; The Tigers would have gotten a bid if the field had been expanded.
There may be room for another mid-major at-large team or two, especially those that dominate the season but lose early in their conference tournament (eg Indiana State in 2024) or those with decent records and impressive metrics but not the marquee win of a power-conference team (eg Miami of Ohio in 2026).
The bottom line, though: After the 2025 men’s tournament in which zero teams seeded lower than 12 made it to the second round and the 2026 men’s tournament in which only one double-digit seed reached the Sweet 16 — and the 2025 women’s tournament could see fewer than zero seeds advance past 12 teams. Climb the expanded field.
VCU Athletic Director Ed McLaughlin 2024 told ESPN He worries about what expansion will do to the small-school run that captivates the nation every March.
“Without these magic (upset) moments, the NCAA Tournament isn’t magic,” said McLaughlin, whose Rams upset North Carolina in overtime of their first-round matchup last March before losing in the second round. “Does greed kill the golden goose? Greed kills many things.”
How will this affect the tournament’s broadcast partners?
In terms of broadcast rights, both media rights deals — CBS and Turner for Men; ESPN for Women — slated to end in 2032 CBS Sports and Turner have agreed Eight year extension Worth $8.8 billion in 2016. ESPN and the NCAA reached out An eight-year contract last September for the rights to 40 NCAA championships, including the $115 million annual women’s basketball tournament.
There is no indication that the contract has materially changed in view of the tournament expansion.
Why expand the tournament now?
These expansion plans have been bubbling under the surface in recent years as college athletics debated College Football Playoff expansion and conference realignment. It was revived in January 2023, when the NCAA Division I Board of Directors Approve the recommendations of a Transition Committee By that summer, the NCAA told the men’s basketball committee to expand all sports championship events to include 25% of teams. discussed Expand the field.
NCAA Presented the expansion plan to Division I conference commissioners in the summer of 2024, with the option to expand the field to 72 or 76 teams, and NCAA President Charlie Baker said last May That he saw the value of action.
“The point behind going from 68 to 72 or 76,” Baker said this time last year, “was basically to give some schools that were probably among the 72, 76, 68, 64 best teams in the country a path to the tournament.”
Commissioners in the nation’s largest conferences have extended long visions, which may provide a clue as to who will benefit most from the change. Both SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips have expressed support for the idea in recent years.
“If the last team to win a national championship, and they’re in the 30s or 40s from an RPI or (NCAA) NET perspective, is our current system supporting national championship competition?” Sanki told Sports Illustrated In 2022. “I think there’s health in that conversation. It doesn’t exclude people. It goes to: How do we include people in this annual national celebration that leads to a national champion?”
“More access, more opportunities for more young men and women,” Phillips told ESPN A few months later. “It has a lot of positive aspects.”
NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt told CBS Sports In an interview earlier this year that recent changes in college athletics — namely, the introduction of the NIL followed by revenue sharing, the rise of transfer portals and the impact of conference realignment — made the increase even more effective.
“There is no sport that is overall deeper and more egalitarian than men’s college basketball,” he said. “There’s great basketball being played at every level of men’s basketball right now. So I think it’s important to keep the tournament contemporary and relevant to what’s going on in college athletics.”
in NCAA announcementIt highlighted two main reasons: greater championship access for student-athletes and financial incentives. More teams in the tournament means more money for the conference, which means more money for the schools — and more eyes on the sport.
How might this, and the approval of a 32-game schedule, affect how coaches manage their teams in the run-up to and during the tournament?
This won’t change much in terms of roster management and minutes distribution, as most teams are still playing the same number of NCAA Tournament games with the same amount of rest as in previous NCAA Tournaments. The addition of a 32nd regular-season game, as voted on last year, would affect non-conference scheduling early in each campaign and thus not dramatically affect the stretch before the tournament. However, this could raise the possibility of non-conference showdowns in January and February.
For example, Duke played Michigan this past February and will face Gonzaga in Detroit next February. It wouldn’t be surprising to see more teams add these types of games as a break from conference play and a way to prepare for potential NCAA Tournament opponents.
