Friday Headlines: NCAA Tournament Expansion Watch

Florida v Houston — Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images

Every March, there is always talk of the “bubble” teams on the fringe of making it into the NCAA College Basketball Tournament.

While it’s always a hot topic that draws a ton of discussion, having an entire season to be one of the best 68 teams in college basketball seems like more than enough opportunity for most of the teams that end up on the outside looking in.

However, if the current field of 68 teams were expanded, that would of course allow for those “bubble” teams on the outside to be considered

for the additional spots.

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that an NCAA Tournament expansion (which seems inevitable) is unlikely to happen this upcoming season due to “logistics” pushing it back to 2026-2027 if the expansion does happen at all.

Any expansion of the NCAA tournaments for this season is growing more unlikely, per comments from executives, including Charlie Baker, who appeared here in DC on Thursday.

“Logistics” are likely to push expansion, if adopted, to 2026-27.https://t.co/tYbhrd2Kgg
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) July 24, 2025

These logistics, of course, involve TV contracts & scheduling, but also regional sites being able to handle more teams or creating more sites to compensate for the added teams.

Not only that, but there are comments in Dellenger’s story that talk about the selection show happening after conference tournaments end, as well as the actual NCAA Tournament itself ending before the Masters begins in April.

There’s simply not a lot of wiggle room to just go out and add more teams/sites/days to the tournament without looking at what all the expansion would impact.

Tweet of the Day

Taking care of business in the classroom. Only SEC school to receive @ABCA1945 academic award each of the past 8⃣ years. #StudentPersonPlayer pic.twitter.com/86qhkfzM2Y
— Kentucky Baseball (@UKBaseball) July 24, 2025