Why NCAA Tournament expansion could be good for Utah basketball

To the dismay of just about every college basketball fan, the NCAA is approaching the final steps toward expanding its men's and women's basketball tournaments to 76 teams.

According to ESPN, the expansion is on track to be finalized in the coming weeks and would begin in the 2026-27 campaign. The men's field has included 68 teams since 2011.

Talks of expanding the beloved tournament have been ongoing for some time now now, with conference realignment serving as the driving force for those who believe more access is the answer to offsetting the impacts 18- and 16-team leagues have had on the sport.

However, most of those rally cries for expansion have come from the powerbrokers in college athletics; fans and even some coaches have argued that the tournament doesn't need altering for the sake of the regular season and maintaining the tournament's prestige. In fact, an X poll from The Field of 68's Rob Dauster, who has over 58,000 followers on the social media platform, revealed that 93.5% of respondents didn't want NCAA Tournament expansion last July.

Nonetheless, here we are: The field is set to grow by eight as soon as next season, allowing for more .500 power conference teams while watering down the importance of the regular season as a result.

On the bright side: fans of schools like Utah, which hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament in over a decade now, will have more opportunities to see their teams dancing in March.

Potential Roadmap for Utah's Next NCAA Tournament

It's clear Alex Jensen and his staff are OK with taking baby steps as they strive to rebuild what was once a proud Utah program. In his first season at the helm, the Utes went 10-22 overall (2-16 in Big 12) and finished dead last in the conference standings.

There's optimism that year two will garner better results, but it's still probably too soon to start pushing NCAA Tournament expectations on Jensen and company at this point. It might not be much longer, though, before the Utes are seriously competiting for an at-large bid in a 76-team field.

That's because — simply put — the bar to qualify for the tournament will be lower than it has been in the 68-team era. Take the thought experiment Sports Illustrated's Kevin Sweeney conducted to figure out what a 76-team field would like like in 2025 as an example: the final two at-larges that would've had to play their way on to the main bracket — Arizona State and Cal — were ranked No. 73 and No. 72, respectively, in the NET rankings.

What did those teams' respective résumés look like, you ask? Well, the Sun Devils went 17-16 overall and lost to Oregon State (17-16) and 17-16 Colorado (twice) in the regular season (granted, the Sun Devils had six Quad 1 wins too). The Bears, meanwhile, were 22-12 overall with four Quad 1 wins and a pair of Quad 3 losses (the Utes nearly beat them on their home floor in early December before falling in a 79-72 final).

For comparison, of the three power conference teams that played in the first four this past postseason, none finished the season worse than No. 40 in the NET.

In theory, then, the Utes would need to snag just a couple of high-profile wins and avoid any costly Quad 3 and Quad 4 losses to be in the mix for an NCAA Tournament bid.

That being said, the Utes still have quite a bit of work to do before they enter NCAA Tournament conversations. They've yet to finish above .500 in conference play since 2019, and come off a season in which they checked in at No. 133 in the NET.

The recruiting wins and transfer portal additions Utah has pulled off in recent weeks are reasons for fans to be hopeful that the 2026-27 season will go smoother than the 2025-26 season did. It could be another year before the Utes are back in the mix for a postseason berth, though an expanded tournament does provide Jensen and company an easier path to March Madness.

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