March Madness just got a little bigger. Whether that will make the best sporting event in the world any better remains to be seen.
The NCAA formally announced Thursday that the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will expand from 68 to 76 teams in 2027. It is the first increase in field size since 2011 for the men’s tourney and 2022 for the women’s event.
The added games will be split between automatic qualifiers from one-bid leagues, ones that would normally get No. 15 and 16 seeds,
and the final at-large selections that often are seeded 11th, 12th and 13th. The latter would have impacted the UA women’s team in 2024 when it faced Auburn in the “First Four” that will now be called the Opening Round.
Opening round games in the women’s tourney will continue to be held on campus sites on the Wednesday and Thursday before the first round, while on the men’s side those games will be played on the Tuesday and Wednesday before. But will previously all preliminary games had been played in Dayton, Ohio, six of the 12 opening round contests will be held at a second city.
That additional venue is expected to be in the western half of the country, the top candidate considered to be Salt Lake City.
The winners of games involving 15 and 16 seeds would then face No. 1 and 2 seeds in the first round, and if this format were in place this past season Arizona’s men’s squad may not have had Long Island as its opening opponent. The Sharks would have had to win an opening round game before getting sent to San Diego.
The opening round winners from the at-large games would get slotted in to face No. 4, 5 and 6 seeds, and traditionally at least one of those teams has ended up winning at least once more after that in the men’s tourney. This past NCAA Tournament saw Texas, coached by former UA coach Sean Miller, go from the First Four to the Sweet 16 and would have faced Arizona in the West Region final had Purdue not won on a last-second tip shot.
