The NCAA is finalizing the expansion of the NCAA March Madness tournament from 68 teams to 76 teams.
On the eve of the best weekend in College Basketball, the NCAA announced that it will be expanding both the men's and women's basketball tournaments from 68 teams to 76 teams.
The announcement was made by Yahoo's Ross Dellenger on Friday, and the released details are that the current "First-Four" round played in Dayton, Ohio, will add eight games to the round to make 24 teams.
The winners in that first round will advance into the now "second round" of the tournament, which is the regular field of 68.
According to Dellenger, barring something "unforeseen," it will happen, and the tournament will be expanded.
The issue here is exactly what the College Football Playoff committee is doing in the fall is that they are simply not addressing the issues at hand.
No one who watches college sports wants the tournaments expanded. We'll debate it until our faces turn blue on teams that got left out or teams that could have made a run at the trophy.
Instead, what people want is a regulation of the NIL and transfer portal that we have been experiencing over the past five years. It is totally out of control and has nearly ruined the sports that we love.
Instead of handling that, the NCAA continues to smash the "tournament expansion" button, and it's frankly ridiculous.
What they have built in College Basketball is a sport where the regular season is nearly completely meaningless.
It doesn't really matter what happens in the regular season in basketball as long as a team can stay around the .500 mark and go for a run in late January and February. It is fine because it has always been that way, but now, the tournament will be even more watered down.
It's disappointing because there has seemingly been a lot of time spent on something that literally no one is asking for.
For Penn State, it may not be all that bad. The Nittany Lions have struggled mightily on both the men's and women's basketball courts. It's been since 2023 since the men's team made the tournament field and 2014 for the women's team.
An expanded tournament may help both programs get to that margin of the tournament to sneak into the new "first round."
It's another disappointing move by the NCAA in a laundry list of bad moves since 2020.
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