“The still viable outcomes include the tournaments remaining at 68 teams or expanding the fields to either 72 or 76 teams in advance of the 2026 or 2027 championships,” Dan Gavitt, the NCAA senior vice president of basketball, said in a statement Thursday.
Though there has been no concrete plan for how expansion would work, speculation has centered on bringing more at-large teams, likely from major conferences, into the 64-team bracket. Such a move that would come at the expense of champions of lower-level conferences.
Currently, two of the First Four games involve 16 seeds — teams that automatically qualify by winning lower-ranked conferences — while two more involve at-large teams often seeded 11 or 12. For instance, in 2021, UCLA made the Final Four as an 11 seed that also played in the First Four.
“I don’t accept that that model just continues in the future,” Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey said at league meetings in May.
“You could go ask my colleagues in the (automatic qualifier) conferences what should happen, and I’m certain they want that split to continue for life,” Sankey said. “But you’ve got some really, really good teams … that I think should be moved into the tournament.”
Any recommendation for expansion would have to be approved by the NCAA’s Division I board, which next meets in August.
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