March Madness is the time of year when schools you have never heard of allow hope to spring eternal, only for Florida to swoop in and crush their one shining moment. The Gators are coming off a national title after entering the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed. In fact, the 2025 NCAA Tournament was notable because St. John's was the only No. 1 or No. 2 seed not to make the Elite Eight.
However, partly because of the massive arguments over UNC making the tournament only to get bounced by Ole Miss, the NCAA thinks even more teams should make March Madness, and this is a terrible idea for everyone involved.
NCAA wants to expand March Madness
Ross Dellenger of On3 indicated that we are getting closer and closer to the 2027 edition of March Madness expanding to 76 teams, up from the 68 who currently make the tournament.
He indicates the tentative plan is for 12 teams to play in an "opening round" that will be played across two sites.
Executives are inching closer to an agreement to expand the NCAA tournament to 76 teams with a 12-game “opening round” played at two sites starting in 2026-27.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) October 2, 2025
If it gets finalized, how will it work?
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And to that we say:
Why?
Who, besides UNC, asked for this?
The entire point of March Madness is to ultimately declare a national champion. If a team can't figure out a way to be selected among the 37 at-large bids that are handed out, then they don't have a claim to being a potential future national champion.
For all the Cinderella talk of March Madness, 27 of the 40 teams to win the national title since the tournament expanded were a No. 1 seed. Only three eventual national champions were seeded lower than a No. 4 seed, and the lowest to ever win was No. 8 seed Villanova back in 1985, the first year of tournament expansion.
Adding eight more teams to Mach Madness is going to create even less drama from the regular season. As it was, 14 of the SEC's 16 teams made the NCAA Tournament in 2025. Are we eventually going to progress to a point where everyone gets an auto bye into the tournament?
We know why this is happening:
Money.
Money is the answer to everything. It's the reason the NFL and MLB expanded their playoffs and why college football wants to expand even more.
But at some point, for the sake of the actual quality of the product on the floor, someone needs to stand up and say "We're good."