Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s Senior Vice President of Basketball, introduced Monday that growth of the lads’s and girls’s basketball event was not on the desk for 2026.
Dialogue have taken place relating to the opportunity of increasing to both 72 or 76 groups from the present 68. Gavitt mentioned that’s not taking place instantly, however didn’t rule out the likelihood in future years.
“Expanding the tournament fields is no longer being contemplated for the 2026 men’s and women’s basketball championships,” Gavitt mentioned. “However, the committees will continue conversations on whether to recommend expanding to 72 or 76 teams in advance of the 2027 championships.”
The potential for event growth has gained momentum in current months, although the subject stays divisive. Many consider that growth would imply that these spots would go to middle-of-the-pack groups from energy conferences, somewhat than extra mid- or low majors who would possibly seize the nation’s collective creativeness as “Cinderella” tales.
The NCAA males’s event expanded from 53 groups to 64 in 1985, and once more to the present 68 in 2011 (with the “First Four” video games — primarily play-in video games — happening every year in Dayton, Ohio). The ladies’s event moved from 48 groups to 64 in 1994, and added the First 4 in 2022.
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