NCAA Tournament expansion will help Syracuse hoops as it looks to end postseason drought

Back in February, NCAA president Charlie Baker made it clear that his vision was to grow the number of March Madness participants (both the men's and women's tourneys), expanding the brackets as soon as the upcoming 2026-27 season, adding either four or eight teams.

We now know that the field of 68 is going to expand to 76 next March, with the addition of another set of games in what is currently known as the "First Four" round, but may have to be changed to the "First 12" or the "First Dozen." Those changes are expected to be approved by various NCAA committees by the end of May.

The games over the first week of the Tourney played on Tuesday-Wednesday have been staged since 2011 at Dayton, and that great college hoops city will likely to continue to serve as a host of what moving forward would be six games (two days of tripleheaders), along with a new second site to host another set of six games (Las Vegas?).

It also means a whopping 24 of the 76 teams, will have played a game before the traditional Round of 64 tips-off on Thursday of the tourney's first week, and most of those teams will be from a power conference, including the ACC.

What NCAA Tournament expansion means for Syracuse and the other ACC teams

As we noted earlier, Syracuse has been a frequent NCAA participant this century, highlighted by winning the 2003 national title, with three Final Four appearances, one Elite Eight spot, and six Sweet 16's - advancing at minimum to the tourney's second week.

Five straight seasons of failing to make the field of 68 has made Orange Nation reminisce to look back to the fun 2021 run to the Sweet 16. The 'Cuse beating San Diego State and West Virginia before falling to Houston seems like awhile ago, going back in time by two Orange head coaches and the budding NIL era.

Now we all feel the excitement and relate to the vision shared by Gerry McNamara's words to us and more importantly to new AD Bryan Blair, that the time to win and get back to where G-Mac just took his final Siena team, is the upcoming season. His subsequent assembled staff and roster (within budget) have backed up those words as much as possible, before one game has been played.

The goal of NCAA expansion is not only to make more money for itself and its major partners, but to also satisfy the major conferennce's quest for more access to the tourney field.

As SI.com's Kevin Sweeney wrote in March, if this past season's tourney contained a 76-team field, 11 of the 12 additional teams would have been from power conferences, including two from the ACC which would have given the league a total of 10 bids.

Let us presume 10 NCAA bids are on the table in 2027 for the ACC, can Syracuse grab one?

McNamara's new look Orange will obviously have to beat the teams that did, or might have, played this past March. This past regular season's record for the 'Cuse against those ten teams (Clemson, Duke, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, SMU, Virginia, and add Cal and Virginia Tech) was a dismal 2-9, so that dynamic will have to change.

As it will the trend of winning scheduled out-of-conference, neutral court games against the likes of Indiana in Indianapolis, and Providence in Boston. In addition, hopefully a much-speculated matchup versus a former Big East rival at Madison Square Garden, a contest G-Mac alluded to in an appearance this week on CBS Sports' Inside College Basketball Now podcast.

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