What the NCAA Tournament Expanding to 76 Teams Means for Alabama

The NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments have been expanded from 68 teams to a field of 76, as the DI Board of Directors and Board of Governors ratified the deal on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, the D-I men's and women's basketball committees unanimously voted for the expansion, per CBS Sports' Matt Norlander.

So, how does this impact Alabama, a program that has been a top-6 seed in March Madness for each of the last six years?

For starters, the First Four will be replaced by a 24-team, 12-game opening round on the Tuesday and Wednesday that follow Selection Sunday. The 12 winners will make the 52-team bracket turn into 64 programs. Each of the 24 teams would not have qualified for the previous 68-team field.

The 76-team brackets will feature an automatic qualifier from each conference, along with the best at-large teams selected by the Men's and Women's Basketball Committees. The lowest-seeded 12 automatic qualifiers, as seeded by the committees, will play in half of the Opening Round games, while the other six games will feature the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams.

The additional bids mean 21 percent of teams have a spot in the NCAA's basketball postseason. Before expansion, championship access for basketball teams was at 18 percent, the lowest among major team sports.

The SEC sent an NCAA-best 10 teams to March Madness this past season. This came one year after the conference shattered the previous record with 14 teams.

While it's mostly known for its football dominance, the SEC has become one of the more prominent college basketball conferences over the past couple of years. Alabama has logged a record of 13-5 in SEC play during each of the last three seasons. All five of the SEC teams that beat the Crimson Tide made the NCAA Tournament.

The more teams in the field means it's more likely that the Crimson Tide will face an SEC program that it fell to during the regular season. The NCAA also has more high-major teams in the bracket than mid-majors, meaning Alabama could go head-to-head with other Power-four conferences sooner than the 68 model.

All this being said, if Alabama does what it continues to do — reaching the Sweet 16 year-in and year-out — this shouldn't be too much of an obstacle for head coach Nate Oats. Upsets happen on a daily basis during March Madness, but the Tide's ruthless non-conference schedule and challenging SEC slate helps prepare the program for the Big Dance.

Oats was asked about the then-potential expansion last week. Here's what he said:

"Yeah, that was interesting. I didn't think that was going that way, and then all of a sudden, it did. I mean, doing the math on that, you've got 24 teams I think got to play play-in games. I guess you'd better figure out a city other than Dayton. Who is going to be the 24 teams in the play-in games?

"Now the question is there's going to be some high-major teams that are a game or two under .500, and all the metrics say are better than some of the mid-major teams. So I guess you're probably going to have some teams on the .500 making the tournament now, which is interesting. But, you know, I get why they did it."

Here's what the new bracket will look like:

NCAA Tournament 76-Team Bracket Format | NCAA

Alabama Basketball in the NCAA Tournament:

(Season, Seed, Final Result)

1974-75: Lost in Round of 64 (NCAA Tournament seeding introduced in 1979)
1975-76: Lost in Sweet 16
1981-82: 4-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1982-83: 6-seed, Lost in Round of 64
1983-84: 9-seed, Lost in Round of 64
1984-85: 7-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1985-86: 5-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1986-87 (vacated): 2-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1988-89: 6-seed, Lost in Round of 64
1989-90: 7-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1990-91: 4-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
1991-92: 5-seed, Lost in Round of 32
1993-94: 9-seed, Lost in Round of 32
1994-95: 5-seed, Lost in Round of 32
2001-02: 2-seed, Lost in Round of 32
2002-03: 10-seed, Lost in Round of 64
2003-04: 8-seed, Lost in Elite Eight
2004-05: 5-seed, Lost in Round of 64
2005-06: 10-seed, Lost in Round of 32
2011-12: 9-seed, Lost in Round of 32
2017-18: 9-seed, Lost in Round of 32
2020-21: 2-seed, Lost in Sweet 16
2021-22: 6-seed, Lost in Round of 64
2022-23: No. 1 overall seed, Lost in Sweet 16
2023-24: 4-seed, Lost in Final Four
2024-25: 2-seed, Lost in Elite Eight
2025-26: 4-seed, Lost in Sweet 16

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