It pains me to say this, but the NCAA Tournament is officially moving to a 76-team field.
On Thursday, the Division I men’s and women’s basketball committees voted to expand both tournaments from 68 teams to 76, which will begin in the 2027 tournaments, according to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander.
The vote was unanimous.
This change means the First Four is no more, and instead, it’s essentially a full opening round of games before the real tournament begins on Thursday and Friday.
“The “First Four” era is
extinct and will be replaced by a 24-team, 12-game “opening round” that will feature six games on the Tuesday after Selection Sunday and six more the following Wednesday. The 12 winners from those 12 games will feed into the 52-team bracket to create a 64-team tournament that initiates the first round on Thursday as usual. That means 32% of the tournament field will not be in the main bracket when it’s revealed on Selection Sunday,“ wrote Norlander.
This also means we’ll have some awful bubble teams make the field when they would have originally been among the ‘first four out’ or even the ‘next four out’ lines.
None of us wanted this, but we’re getting it anyway.
