What NCAA Tournament Expansion Means for Minnesota Basketball

It's official. According to a report from CBS Sports' Matt Norlander on Thursday, the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments will have 76 teams for the 2026-27 season, and going forward. Let's go over some thoughts on tournament expansion and what it means for Minnesota basketball.

What does this accomplish?

This is the biggest question I asked myself when the idea of expanding the NCAA Tournament fields to 76 teams was first suggested. Who benefits? The answer to that question is...a bunch of faceless executives wearing suits.

If you polled 100 random college basketball fans, I would be quite confident that 90 or more would be against expansion. March Madness is routinely one of the best sporting events of the year, and it was hard to find anyone who was saying "We need more teams." So it's certainly not the fans who are benefiting.

SI's own Kevin Sweeney did a great job writing about what a 76-team field would've looked like after the 2025-26 men's season. 7 of the 8 teams added were from a power conference, none of which had a winning record in conference play. San Diego State would've been the only mid-major program added to the field. So, it's not going to be the small schools that are benefiting.

You could argue that the small schools are actually the ones being hurt the most. In the new model, there will be six play-in games between 16 seeds and 15 seeds who won their conference tournaments, compared to just two in previous years. This might help those teams financially, as they'll be compensated for winning an NCAA Tournament game, but it hurts those who lose even more. And it just waters down the product.

In a surprise to nobody, the leading factor in this move is money. The NCAA and TV networks can sell more ads on more games and make more money. Nobody is thinking about the long-term health of the sport; they're thinking about how they can maximize profits in the short-term and how they can put money in their pockets. This decision accomplishes that, so good job, NCAA. Charlie Baker can probably buy a new boat next year. The casual fans who tune in every March probably won't care or even notice the expanded field.

I just struggle to figure out how this move makes the sport better, or why it needed to be done. There will obviously be some years where mid-major programs sneak into the field when they wouldn't have been able to in the past, but probably far more scenarios where mediocre power conference teams can play games they probably don't deserve to be in. We have coaches making close to $10 million annually and star players making up to $5 million as 20-year-old college students. Who in their right mind would say "We need more money?"

How it impacts Minnesota

Now that I am off my soapbox, let's talk about what this means for the University of Minnesota.

The Gophers' women's basketball program has already established itself in the top half of the Big Ten under Dawn Plitzuweit. If they're able to keep getting top-four seeds in the field, this news probably impacts them very little. But it took them more than seven years to get back into the field to begin with. They probably would've made the tournament in 2024-25 with the new model, and life on the bubble will change.

For a men's basketball program like Minnesota, which has played in the NCAA Tournament seven times since going to the Final Four in 1996-97, expansion could be a huge benefit. Mediocre power conference teams are typically the teams on the bubble, and Minnesota has missed the tournament with 8 or 9 Big Ten wins seven times this century. By making it easier to get in, expansion will change expectations for programs across the country, including the Gophers.

In the short term, there probably won't be any big ripple effects from this move. In the long term, it will de-value the regular season and high major conference tournaments while putting far more value on the NCAA Tournament.

Add us as a preferred source on Google