LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The NCAA Tournament isn't getting bigger. At least not yet.
After months of speculation and debate, the NCAA Division I men's and women's basketball committees announced Monday that they will not recommend expanding the 68-team field for the 2026 postseason. The decision all but ensures that next season's tournaments will stick with the current format.
"Expanding the tournament fields is no longer being contemplated for the 2026 men's and women's basketball championships," said Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball, said in a statement. "However, the committees will continue conversations on whether to recommend expanding to 72 or 76 teams in advance of the 2027 championships."
With the 2025-26 season less than three months away, the timeline had already made expansion for 2026 unlikely. But broader momentum has also cooled. Although some power-conference commissioners and high-major coaches have pushed for a larger field, public sentiment — including from prominent media voices — has remained staunchly against it.
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A formal vote had been expected in July, when the basketball committees met separately in Savannah and Philadelphia. When no vote came, it signaled a shift in the conversation. The expansion push, at least for now, had lost altitude.
This round of expansion talk began in early 2023, when the NCAA's Transformation Committee suggested that championships in sports with more than 200 teams should offer postseason access to at least 25% of participants. Applied to men's basketball — with 363 Division I programs — that would mean a 90-plus team NCAA Tournament. That idea drew immediate resistance.
Still, high-major commissioners saw opportunity. In an era of realignment and revenue-driven decision-making, more postseason bids could mean more exposure, more money and fewer disappointed athletic directors.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has been one of the most vocal advocates, reiterating at SEC Football Media Days in July: "Nothing in college basketball is static. So tournament expansion is certainly worth exploring."
Supporters argue that the field has not kept pace with the growth of Division I — which has added more than 100 programs since the last major expansion in 1985. Others believe expansion could drive more media rights value, especially with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery holding NCAA Tournament broadcasting rights through 2032. But those networks are not obligated to increase payouts for a bigger field, and so far, the NCAA has struggled to find new sponsorship revenue to offset the costs of more games.
Critics of expansion point out that most new bids would likely go to additional power-conference teams, not smaller schools from one-bid leagues — where most Division I growth has occurred. That, opponents say, would water down March Madness, shifting the tournament's magic from Cinderella stories to .500-level high-majors looking for a lifeline.
Last year's first four teams out of the men's field? West Virginia (Big 12), Indiana (Big Ten), Ohio State (Big Ten), and Boise State (Mountain West). Meanwhile, the SEC — led by Sankey — set a record with 14 of its 16 teams making the field.
If expansion does happen in 2027, the likeliest scenario is an expanded "First Four," doubling or tripling the number of play-in games on the Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday. A 72-team field, for example, could require two host sites instead of just Dayton, Ohio.
For now, the bracket stays as is. But the debate — like the field someday — is only likely to grow.
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