It’s official: NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments will expand to 76 teams starting in 2027

Written by CAN’T DO THIS IN A GYM!

Chris CwikContributing writer

Thu, May 7, 2026 at 12:45 PM PDT297

The NCAA believes bigger is better when it comes to March Madness. The organization will expand both the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments to include 76 teams, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.

Both the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball selection committees approved the move and voted on Thursday morning to expand, per Dellenger. The motion was then ratified by the basketball oversight committees and the DI Board of Directors and Board of Governors.

Starting in 2027, there will be eight additional at-large teams, per the NCAA, which laid out how the 76-team tournament will be structured.

The announcement ends months of reports suggesting tournament expansion was on the horizon. In early April, a source told Dellenger tournament expansion “will happen” during the offseason. On Thursday, that proved to be true.

While speculation was rampant for months, the NCAA released a statement in late April throwing cold water on reports suggesting expansion was finalized. In that statement, the NCAA said any expansion would need to be approved by multiple committees, and that no decisions had been “made at this time.”

“Expanding the basketball tournaments would require approval from multiple NCAA committees, including the men’s and women’s basketball committees, and no final recommendations or decisions have been made at this time.”

After Thursday’s news, it’s clear the NCAA was able to get those committees on board with the idea.

The move will expand the “First Four” round by eight games. The first two days of the tournament will include 24 teams playing 12 games over two days.

The idea of expansion received support from the Big 12, ACC and NCAA president Charlie Baker, who said too many good teams were being excluded from the tournament under the previous format.

“There are every year some really good teams that don’t get to the tournament for a bunch of reasons,” Baker said last fall. “One of the reasons is we have 32 automatic qualifiers [for conference champions]. I love that and think it’s great and never want that to change, but that means there’s only 36 slots left for everybody else.”