The NCAA has used the 68-team format for March Madness since 2011, but it seems that the number of participating basketball teams could continue to grow in the future.
NCAA president Charlie Baker was asked on the Dan Patrick Show about the possibility of reaching 96 teams in the tournament at some point, which he promptly shut down. An expansion is definitely possible, and probably likely, but the tournament would add just four or eight teams to the field.
"The most we’ll ever go to is somewhere in the 70s," Baker said. "The calendar is very, very limited in how many games we can slam into that period of time."
This opens up the possibility of March Madness expanding to 72 or 76 teams in the future. Baker noted that the committee has "some work to do" in order to make that happen.
.@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
It's unclear how the NCAA would make 72 or 76 teams work in the tournament, especially since four teams are already eliminated during the play-in games before the official start of the Round of 64. However, Yahoo! Sports' Ross Dellenger reported in the summer that the Round of 64 format would remain, meaning any expansions would increase the number of play-in games. That same report mentioned that an expansion could occur for the 2025–26 season.
The NCAA tournament would expand for both the men's and women's sides.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NCAA President Hints March Madness Field Could Expand.
