NCAA President Favors Tourney Expansion, But Reasoning Flawed

NCAA President Charlie Baker supports the Big Dance expanding in the future, although his reasoning is flawed. This week, Baker spoke at a Big East Conference media roundtable, where he discussed the potential expansion of the NCAA Tournament in both men’s and women’s basketball.

NCAA President Favors Tourney Expansion, But Reasoning Flawed

This season’s March Madness, at the conclusion of the 2025-26 campaign, will not grow. It will stay at 68 teams. Baker, though, is hopeful that the NCAA Tournament could expand for the 2026-27 season.

The NCAA president said he believes an expansion of the Big Dance is an opportunity for “a bunch of worthy schools” to get invited to the annual 68-team event. But that’s a flawed argument. If those teams were worthy of getting in, they should have just won more games. It’s really that simple.

Baker noted that due to the NCAA Tournament having 32 automatic qualifiers—those squads that win their respective post-season conference tournaments—the selection committee is tasked with finding the 36 best at-large teams. With only 36 at-large invites, Baker says that will result in “a bunch of teams” not getting in that should have.

Really? A squad that isn’t among the top-36 at-large groups isn’t all that deserving, candidly. The NCAA Tournament is one of the most prestigious events in sports. It shouldn’t be handing out participation trophies. Baker says if you expand the NCAA Tournament “a little bit,” that will ensure every team that deserves to get in, gets in.

NCAA Tourney Expansion is Going to Happen at Some Point

As Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reported earlier this month, NCAA officials and their television partners are honing in on a 76-team Big Dance in the future. This bigger March Madness would come in the 2026-27 campaign.

The new “opening round” would feature 24 teams playing 12 games over the course of two days. There would be two sites. One in Dayton, which is the home of the current First Four, and another site, likely further out west. Such an opening round would result in 12 teams moving on to join 52 squads to create a NCAA tourney first round of 64 teams.

How the selection committee would determine which additional teams to invite to a 76-team field isn’t entirely clear. What is clear is that many fans bemoan such an expansion. Virtually no one wants it—outside of NCAA executives, their television partners, advertisers and others who would stand to gain. It’s a money-grab, and this expansion will water down the annual Big Dance.

Teams Wanting to Make NCAA Tourney Should Just Win More Games

In his recent remarks, Baker referenced a couple of teams that he thought were unfairly left out of recent NCAA tourneys. He mentioned Indiana State along with Big East Conference members Seton Hall and St. John’s. Every season, some teams that didn’t hear their names called on Selection Sunday will claim that they were slighted. The media will say the same thing. But these teams could have simply won a game or two more, and it wouldn’t have mattered. They would have gotten in to the NCAA tourney at that point. Furthermore, if an NCAA tournament expansion only results in sub-par teams from power conferences making the field, that’s not desirable. An expansion should include high-quality mid-major programs that perhaps didn’t win their conference tournaments. A few squads from the ACC, Big Ten or the SEC that only went .500 in conference play landing bids won’t necessarily improve the quality of the NCAA tournament. It’s merely a television ratings ploy. © Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images