Big 12 commissioner believes NCAA Tournament expansion is due. He says 76 teams is the right number

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is in favor of expanding the men’s NCAA Tournament to 76 teams, and he believes a decision could come in the next few months, opening the possibility of proposed changes being implemented as soon as next year.

Yormark spoke before the start of the Big 12 Tournament on Tuesday.

“I’m in favor of expansion to 76. I think that’s the right number,” he said. “I think the economics candidly have to work. CBS and TNT have a marquee (television) asset with the tournament. I know they know that. But in order for us to expand, they need to come to the table and provide the right economics.”

This year’s edition of March Madness will be the 40th men’s bracket since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985; it later grew to the current 68-team configuration. The women’s bracket increased to 64 in 1994 and added four more teams in 2022.

Last year, the NCAA presented a plan to Division I commissioners that would expand the men’s and women’s tournaments by four or eight teams alongside an option to leave each field at 68. The time-honored 64-team bracket would remain and the added teams would be part of the play-in games involving the 10-through-12 seeds.

NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said in a recent CBS Sports interview that he doesn’t expect a vote in the near future, but he left open the possibility of a spring vote. Gavitt said changes in game operation and travel were among many issues to consider, and that the decision is “not taken in a lighthearted way at all.”

“Expansion, even in a modest level, is complex, more complex than I think has been recognized and reported, because it is expensive,” said Gavitt, whose father Dave Gavitt helped oversee the 1985 expansion as chair of the selection committee.

Gavitt said during the CBS interview that he isn’t sure whether the field should expand, but he sounded more positive about the possibility than he was a few years ago. Name, image and likeness, conference realignment and the transfer portal have changed the dynamics, and Gavitt said men’s basketball, in particular, might be suited to handle it.

“There’s no sport that is deeper overall and has more parity than men’s college basketball,” he said. “There’s great basketball played at every level in men’s basketball right now. So I think it’s important to keep the tournament contemporary and relevant, based on what is going on in college athletics.”

That was the case made by Yormark, who said Tuesday he believes there is an appetite for more teams and games.

“I think there will be some decisions over the next 90 days, 60 days,” Yormark said. “No one wants to be diluted, and we have a great asset here. We’ll see how it plays out.”

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