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NCAA president Charlie Baker appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday afternoon.
He talked about a myriad of topics on the show, including potential expansion for the NCAA Tournament in the future. The Big Dance has long been at 68 teams, but has slowly expanded over the decades.
Baker told Patrick that there’s no plans to expand the tournament to 96 teams, which was an idea that had been floated in the past. However, he did say there’s “room” for it to expand into the 72s.
“The committees have some work to do here, but I think there’s room to go to something like 72 or 76,” Baker said.
.@NCAA President Charlie Baker says "there's room to go to something like 72 or 76 teams" in the NCAA College Basketball tournament pic.twitter.com/UmsUkiyQCb
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) November 13, 2024
Expanding the NCAA Tournament to 72 or 76 teams would presumably only have an impact on the play-in round, which is currently contested in Dayton each year prior to the start of the tournament. The format currently dictates that the final 4 at-large berths and the lowest-seeded auto-berths play in the “First Four” section of the tournament prior to the first weekend of the Big Dance.
College sports leaders like SEC commissioner Greg Sankey have previously indicated their support for expanding the NCAA Tournament.
It’s unclear when this potential expansion could take place. However, discussions appear to be ongoing about how to best format March Madness moving forward.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
