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NCAA Tournament expansion talks are moving along.
During a hit on ESPN’s College GameDay Saturday morning, ESPN insider Pete Thamel reported that discussions are ongoing to expand the tournament by as many as 8 teams for 2026. The field has been at 68 since 2011.
“There’s development behind the scenes about what this tournament could look like in 2026,” Thamel reported Saturday morning on GameDay. “NCAA President Charlie Baker is on the record saying there’s been discussions about growing the tournament to either 72 or 76 teams. I had multiple high-ranking sources tell me this week that the more likely option if the tournament were to expand would be to 76.
“The NCAA has been in discussions with its media partners for a while now and a decision on whether it does go to 76 (or not) would come in the next few months.”
Thamel noted that an addition of 8 teams to the tournament field would mark the largest expansion of the NCAA Tournament since the field doubled from 32 to 64 teams in 1985. The “logistics of what that would look like” have not yet been set, according to Thamel.
An additional site for tournament games would be likely, with that site coming outside of the Eastern time zone.
Thamel reported that the women’s basketball tournament would grow to 76 teams alongside the men’s tournament.
In June 2024, Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported that NCAA officials presented Division I conference commissioners with multiple models for an expanded tournament field — one that featured 72 teams and another that featured 76 teams. Those models included additional at-large selections and at least one additional First Four site to operate in conjunction with Dayton.
In December 2024, Baker told ESPN he was “bullish” on the prospect of expanding the tournament and that he had engaged in “productive” conversations with television partners about the idea.
“I’m bullish on the conversations we’ve had about going to 72 or 76, and I think the committees are willing to consider that, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything beyond that,” Baker said then, per ESPN.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has publicly backed the idea of expansion. He told ESPN last March that college basketball is “giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers [from smaller leagues],” and more competitive leagues at the top of the sport will drive expansion in pursuit of more at-large bids.
Not so coincidentally, the SEC is in the midst of one of the best seasons we’ve seen from a conference in modern college basketball history. The league is on pace to send more than a dozen teams into the NCAA Tournament, potentially setting a record in the process. It could have 3 No. 1 seeds in the field. As a sign of the competitive depth in the league, Oklahoma was one of the last unbeaten teams in college basketball this season and rose as high as No. 12 in the AP poll. But the Sooners are just 3-8 in conference play.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
