Fans of college basketball and the NCAA Tournament could be getting more action at the end of the season starting in 2025-26.
The postseason tournament branded as March Madness appears to be on track to expand from 68 teams to 72 or 76, per a report by ESPN’s Dan Murphy.
NCAA president Charlie Baker is quoted as being “bullish” on the idea of expansion but said that would be the end of any kind of proliferation.
“I think the committees are willing to consider [expansion], but I don’t think it’s going to be anything beyond [76 teams],” Baker said at an event hosted by Sports Business Journal.
He cited the limited window the NCAA has to put on the end-of-season tournament between conference championships and coverage of the Masters golf tournament.
It was not immediately clear if expansion would affect the pre-first-round play-in games, called the “First Four” and played in Dayton, Ohio, or would offer any kind of bye for higher seeds similar to the College Football Playoff.
Although, Baker admitted that the bubble teams left out of the basketball tournament will still probably feel the same as those left out of the 12-team football bracket no matter the size of the field.
“There are always going to be people who thought it worked exactly the way it should and people who think otherwise,” Baker conceded.
Any decision on growing the field would have to come before the end of the 2025 tournament in order to take effect with the 2026 competition, Murphy’s report noted.
The changes Baker are suggesting would also potentially wane the quality of top seeds in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), which has already lost value with teams declining to participate in recent years.
Whether the cause is money or attempting to fix the qualification system, as the CFP will be expanding to 14 teams in 2026, it seems the cycle of retooling college postseasons is never-ending.
