NCAA tournament expansion FAQ: What you need to know now that it’s official

It’s finally official: the NCAA is expanding the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments to eight teams on new 76-courts, effective immediately for the upcoming season.

Of the 68 teams participating in last season’s tournaments, 31 were automatic bids (each conference receives one each) and 37 were at-large bids, chosen by selection committees based on various parameters. The increase to 76 teams means 44 at-large bids will now be handed out, with 32 automatic bids needed due to the return of the Pac-12.

This is the first expansion of the men’s tournament since 2011, when it grew from 65 to 68 teams. It is also the largest expansion since 1985, when the field doubled from 32 to 64 teams.

The women’s tournament has changed more recently, expanding to 68 teams in 2022. It has been a 64-team field since 1994, gradually increasing in the decade since the first NCAA women’s basketball tournament in 1982 (played with 32 teams).

The latest expansion begs the question: What does this mean for college basketball? Here’s everything you need to know.

Go to: Bracketology for men

How will the eight additional teams be ranked?

The First Four is over, the first round is underway. Instead of eight teams playing four matches for a chance to advance to the round of 16, there will now be 24 teams playing in 12 of those matches. Half of these teams will be the lowest-ranked automatic qualifier teams, the other half will be the lowest-ranked general teams.

The NCAA will visually present the new opening round at the top of the table, with the winners added to the classic field of 64 teams.

Here’s what the field of 76 teams will look like: pic.twitter.com/BmJsJZ7pOY

– Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) May 7, 2026

When and where will the new “Opening Round” take place?

On the men’s side, the 12 matches will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday between selection Sunday and the start of the round of 16 this Thursday. Instead of scheduling two games each day in Dayton, as was the case with the First Four, there will be three games each day in Dayton and three games each day in a second city yet to be determined. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that the second site should be west of the Eastern Time Zone to ease logistics.

On the women’s side, the 12 first-round matches will be played on Wednesday and Thursday between Selection Sunday and the start of the round of 16 this Friday – and at 12 of the campus sites designated as hosts for the first and second rounds.

What does this mean for the Bubble and potential Cinderellas?

The bubble will get bigger, and more teams will see their chance to make the tournament in the latter part of the season, in part by minimizing some of the “bubble elimination” games we’ve seen during Champ Weeks, when teams often compete for an at-large bid. And the main beneficiaries of the expansion will undoubtedly be the power conferences.

With the realignment, we’ve already seen teams that finished in the middle of the pack enter the pack, which will happen more frequently with more bids up for grabs. For example, an Auburn team that finished 7-11 in the SEC and 17-16 overall was among the top four teams in last season’s tournament; the Tigers would have gotten a bid if the field had been widened.

There might be room for one or two other mid-sized at-large teams, especially those that dominate the season but lose early in their conference tournaments (i.e. Indiana State in 2024) or those with gaudy records and impressive metrics but not the marquee victories of power conference teams (i.e. Miami Ohio in 2026).

The bottom line, though: After a 2025 men’s tournament in which no seeded teams with fewer than 12 leads entered the second round and a 2026 men’s tournament that saw only one double-digit seed reach the Sweet 16 — and a 2025 women’s tournament with zero seeded teams with fewer than 10 leads — Cinderella may have an even tougher climb in the expanded field.

VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin told ESPN in 2024 that he’s concerned about how expansion will impact the small-school races that captivate the country every March.

“Without this magic [upset] moments, the NCAA Tournament isn’t magic,” said McLaughlin, whose Rams upset North Carolina in overtime in their first-round game before losing in the second round last March. “Does greed eventually kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Greed kills many things. »

How will this affect the tournament’s broadcast partners?

As for broadcast rights, the two media rights agreements – CBS and Turner for men; ESPN for Women is set to end in 2032. CBS Sports and Turner agreed to an eight-year extension in 2016, worth $8.8 billion. ESPN and the NCAA reached an eight-year deal last September for the rights to 40 NCAA championships, including the women’s basketball tournament, worth $115 million a year.

There is no indication that any of the agreements have changed materially as a result of the tournament’s expansion.

Why expand tournaments NOW?

Plans for that expansion have been bubbling beneath the surface in recent years, as college athletics grappled with College Football Playoff expansion and conference realignment. This accelerated in January 2023, when the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved a transformation committee’s recommendation to expand all sports championships to include 25% of teams. That summer, the NCAA said the men’s basketball committee had discussed expanding the field.

The NCAA presented expansion plans to Division I conference commissioners in the summer of 2024, including options to increase the number of participants to 72 or 76 teams, and NCAA President Charlie Baker said last May that he saw value in the move.

“The whole point of going from 68 to 72 or 76,” Baker said this time last year, “is basically to give some of these schools that were probably among the top 72, 76, 68, 64 teams in the country a path to the tournament.”

Commissioners of the nation’s largest conferences have long considered expansion, which could provide some insight into who will benefit most from the change. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips have both expressed support for the idea in recent years.

“If the last team can win the national championship and they are in the 30s or 40s of an RPI or [NCAA] NET, does our current approach support national championship competition? ” Sankey told Sports Illustrated in 2022. “I think there’s health in that conversation. It doesn’t exclude people. The question is: How can we include people in these annual national celebrations that lead to a national champion? »

“More access, more opportunities for more young men and women,” Phillips told ESPN a few months later. “There are a lot of positives to this.”

Dan Gavitt, NCAA senior vice president of basketball, told CBS Sports in an interview earlier this year that recent changes in college athletics – i.e. the introduction of NIL and then revenue sharing, the rise of the transfer portal and the impact of conference realignment – ​​have made the increase more viable.

“No sport is more deep overall and provides more parity than men’s college basketball,” he said. “There is good men’s basketball at all levels right now, so I think it’s important to keep the tournament contemporary and relevant, based on what’s happening in college athletics.”

In the NCAA’s announcement, it highlighted two major factors: better access to championships for student-athletes and a financial incentive. More teams in the tournament means more money for the conferences, which means more money for the schools – and more attention to the sport.

How might that, along with the approval of a 32-game schedule, impact how coaches manage their teams before and during the tournament?

This won’t change much in terms of roster management and minute distribution, as the majority of teams are still playing the same number of NCAA tournament games with the same rest time as in previous NCAA tournaments. The addition of a 32nd regular season game, as voted on last year, will impact the non-conference schedule at the start of each campaign and therefore should not significantly affect the pre-tournament stretch. However, this could increase the likelihood of non-conference matchups in January and February.

For example, Duke played Michigan last 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 way to break away from the conference grind and prepare for potential NCAA Tournament opponents.