76-team NCAA Tournament gets unanimous approval from selection committees

When it comes to potential expansion of the NCAA Tournament, the proposal cleared its first hurdle this week as the selection committees for both men’s and women’s basketball voted unanimously in favor of increasing the number of teams to 76, as per Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.

There are still other committees and groups that need to vote to approve NCAA Tournament expansion, such as the NCAA’s Board of Governors, but following the vote of the selection committees, approval is pretty much a foregone conclusion. The expansion of the tournament will then take place next season in 2026-27 and will include both the men’s and women’s brackets.

The number of teams will be expanded to 76, up from the 68 that currently comprise the tournament. How that works is still not 100 percent clear. The current tournament format features four play-in games, essentially, for the right to secure a tournament berth. It also remains to be seen how the selection process works in terms of how teams are chosen.

Critics have argued that expansion will only serve to squeeze out deserving mid-major teams. And taking a scroll through social media will reveal that sentiment in favor of expansion is very low.

The original NCAA Tournament consisted of only eight teams, and gradually worked its way up to a 32-team format in 1975. The number of teams continued to increase until the more recent iteration of 64 teams was implemented in 1985. The 68-team format came into the picture in 2011.

This season, the Michigan Wolverines were the champion of the men’s tournament while the UCLA Bruins were the champion of the women’s tournament.

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