The NCAA Tournament is set for expansion for the first time since it moved from 65 to 68 teams in 2011. According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Tuesday evening, the NCAA has “initiated the final steps to expand the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to 76 teams.”
Once everything goes through after the final checks and approvals over the coming weeks, the expansion will take place imminently. The changes will be enforced for the 2026-2027 NCAA Tournament in both the men’s and women’s brackets.
The 76-team field would see eight additional teams added to the mix. According to Thamel’s report, what’s best known as the First Four round, eight teams playing four games in Dayton, OH, would expand to 12 games played by 24 teams. The report also suggests that Dayton will continue to serve as the host site, but there will be another site to help ease the load.
Once the 12 teams are decided in the opening round, those teams will enter the 52-team field to get things back to the traditional 64-team bracket. From there, the tournament would look much of the same as what’s best seen in the past. The biggest difference is that more at-large bids will be forced to play in this earlier opening round to solidify their spot in the 64-team main bracket.
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As in any given year, this season’s NCAA Tournament selection process saw fierce competition between the last teams that were awarded spots in the Big Dance. The final four spots went to NC State, Texas, SMU, and Miami (OH). The first four out, meanwhile, included Oklahoma, Auburn, San Diego State, and Indiana.
Texas defeated NC State in the First Four round, while Miami (OH) took care of business against SMU. The Longhorns wound up making a run to the Sweet 16 and fell just short of beating Purdue for a spot in the Elite Eight. Miami (OH), on the other hand, was clobbered by Tennessee in the opening round.
The other side of this year’s First Four round saw four teams – Howard, UMBC, Lehigh, and Prairie View – compete to see which two teams would earn their spots as 16-seeds in the main bracket to take on 1-seeds in the first round. Howard and Prairie View won their games but fell to Michigan and Florida, respectively, in the first round.
In 2022, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde that he was open to having a conversation about expanding the NCAA Tournament. Obviously, as seen by the last few tournaments, nothing came to fruition before now. But he did appear interested in at least having the conversation to see what might come up with the ideas.
Thamel’s report states that nothing is official with the tournament expansion yet, but his sources say that “they have what they need to move forward.” There are still approvals to get and contracts to complete, but it does look like we’re on the fast track to seeing an eight-team tournament expansion in both men’s and women’s basketball in the upcoming 2026-2027 season.
