The news on the NCAA tournament expansion is… there is no news.
The NCAA men’s basketball committee concluded its annual summer meetings Wednesday and moved no closer to a decision on whether to expand the NCAA tournamentsources told CBS Sports. The topic was discussed at length Tuesday and remains up for debate for a number of reasons, perhaps the most significant being the significant financial commitment (with millions more in spending) that would come with expansion — not just of the men’s tournament but also the women’s. The NCAA is debating whether to stay at 68 teams or expand to 72 or 76. There is no timetable for a decision, sources told CBS Sports.
Committee members also discussed the implications of expanding the field, sources said, namely that going to 72 or 76 teams would require teams that would be in a 68-team field to be removed from Thursday/Friday games and play Tuesday/Wednesday in a First Four-style event. Some of those teams would likely be No. 10 seeds, which has implications for the competitive balance of the field.
Two new measures coming in the selection process
On Thursday morning, the NCAA announced the changes that were approved at committee meetings in Park City, Utah. Most notably, the ever-valuable rosters (which committee members refer to constantly as they deliberate how to select and seed teams for March Madness) are getting a makeover. Two metrics — one resume-based, one predictive — will be implemented starting next year. That will bring the number of metrics on rosters to six, completing a process that will involve more data — three predictive, three resume-based — than ever before.
BartTorvik.com, a predictive measure similar to KenPom.comhas been approved as the official measure of a team’s scorecard, according to the NCAA release. Torvik’s T-Rank system has gained popularity in college basketball circles over the past five years. The other big addition is a metric called “Wins Above Bubble,” which is resume-based and essentially shows how many more (or fewer) wins a team has earned relative to its schedule than an average bubble team would have relative to that same schedule. For the hardcore basketball analytics community, Wins Above Bubble (WAB) has been considered the most objective of all metrics when it comes to evaluating resume performance.
The fact that the NCAA has progressed enough to officially adopt it in 2024 is a significant sign of evolution in how the 12-person selection committee evaluates teams. The WAB will be derived from the NCAA’s NET formula.
The committee approved, as expected, another formal change to the selection process. The Pac-12’s demise means there are now 31 automatic bids from 31 conferences in addition to the 37 at-large selections for the 2024-25 season.
Indy to be home to all men’s championships in 2026
Lucas Oil Stadium was approved to host the men’s Final Four in 2018, but this week marked the second time the NCAA has held the DI, D-II and D-III men’s basketball championships in the same city. Indianapolis will serve as the 2026 home site for all three men’s basketball tournaments in addition to Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse hosting the NIT semifinals.
This is the first time in history that all four events will be held in the same city. In 2013, Atlanta hosted the DI, D-II and D-III men’s championships, but not the NIT.
“This will be a tremendous celebration of men’s college basketball in all three divisions in Indy,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said in the release. “When we hosted this in 2013, we had nearly 8,000 fans watching the Division II and III championship games, and the final two nights of this year’s NIT at Hinkle Fieldhouse were attended by more than 9,000 fans in a sellout. This will be a tremendous opportunity for the student-athletes from the participating schools, as well as a showcase for the legendary college basketball fans in Indiana.”
Indianapolis, home of the NCAA, regularly hosts tournaments every five years; the last time it hosted this tournament was in 2021, during the COVID bubble tournament.
And as always at its summer meetings, the NCAA selected its president for the upcoming season. Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill will chair the committee for the 2025-26 season.
