More madness! NCAA makes 76-team bracket official for men’s, women’s tournaments
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NCAA officially expanded the men’s and women’s hoops tournaments to 76 teams for 2026-27.
- In 1st round, 24 teams will produce 12 winners who’ll join 52 others in a 64-team bracket.
- Expansion adds about $131M in distribution over six years and allows alcohol sponsorships.
The expanded NCAA Tournament brackets for Division I men’s and women’s basketball — March Madness — have arrived.
The NCAA made the 76-team tournaments official for the 2026-27 season with an announcement on Thursday. The new bracket replaces the 68-team format that had been in place since 2011.
For some local college hoops programs, this shouldn’t make much difference. Kansas hasn’t missed a tournament since 1989, although the Jayhawks’ 2018 appearance was vacated because of NCAA violations.
Missouri made the field as a No. 10 seed this spring and has played in three of the past four NCAA Tournaments under Tigers head coach Dennis Gates.
Kansas State wouldn’t have been helped by an expanded bracket after finishing 12-20 in 2025-26. But the Wildcats will be eager to return to the NCAAs with their new head coach, Casey Alexander.
The KU women, meanwhile, who reached the WBIT semifinal this year, would have received stronger consideration for an NCAA bid in a bigger tourney field.
Notably, Kansas City will have a role in the expanded tournament’s implementation in the spring of 2027. T-Mobile Center will play host to the men’s Midwest Regional next season.
Here’s how the expanded field will work:
There will be 32 automatic bids and 44 at-large spots. There is no more First Four. Now, there will be an “opening round” involving 24 teams.
The 12 winners of those opening-round games will be added to the 52 schools that were selected for the NCAA Tournament but did not have to play in the opening round. This is the field that will make up the classic 64-team bracket starting in 2026-27.
The Opening Round games will be played on same days as the First Four games, but there will be six games each on the Tuesday and Wednesday of tournament week.
Dayton, Ohio, the tradition home of the First Four, will be the site of three games each day. Another site to be used for the other six games hasn’t been determined.
The expanded tournament will team a bigger bubble. More teams will be involved in bracketology projection as the regular-season winds down.
The NCAA has billed expansion as more “opportunities for student-athletes and more exciting matchups for fans.”
The addition bids mean 21 percent of teams will be included in the postseason. With 68 teams it was 18 percent.
Some $131 million in additional revenue will be distributed to the schools over the remaining six years of the NCAA’s current media deal.
Also: beer money. The NCAA will open new, previously restricted product categories for the NCAA Corporate Champions and Partners Program, including beer, wine, spirits, hard seltzer and allows for expanded in-game advertising.