NCAA Tournament expansion is inevitable, and could happen by 2026 | CBB event set for Opening Day‪!‬ Locked On College Basketball

The NCAA is preparing to expand the NCAA Tournament to either 72 or 76 teams, altering the current play-in format which includes a 68-team field. Specific details were not disclosed, but the expansion could happen as soon as the 2025-26 college basketball season. Despite public pushback, the idea of expanding the tournament keeps coming up thanks to power conference commissioners - and at this point a bloated March Madness field is an inevitability.