Candid Coaches: Should the NCAA Tournament remain at 68 teams, or expand to 72 or 76?

CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked 10 questions; this is our final edition for 2024.

For our last Candid Coaches topic this year, let’s address The Big Question in college basketball that will almost definitely have an answer by the time we do this again in 2025.

In July, the Division I men’s basketball committee continued to discuss what to do, if anything, with the NCAA Tournament. It’s a topic that carries as much interest as maybe any other these days in college hoops. There are many who believe no decision should be made; just keep it at 68 and be done with it. 

But the committee is doing its due diligence here, because it sort of has to. Keep in mind that this group of commissioners and ADs is following the formal guidance that came out back at the end of 2022/the beginning of 2023, when the Division I Transformation Committee released a litany of recommendations to modify college athletics. Exploration of potential expansion of all NCAA-sponsored championships (that included at least 200 programs participating in a given sport) was inevitably a hot-topic proposal.

We’ve been waiting ever since to see what would come of said exploration. They’re still exploring.

What was decided earlier this summer by the Division I men’s basketball committee: The NCAA Tournament bracket is not going to be subject to significant expansion. If it expands, it will either inflate to 72 or 76 teams, no more. Staying at 68 also remains on the table. The timetable for that verdict remains TBD because it’s a major consideration that is being seriously and deliberately examined by many of the key players in college athletics.

This is admittedly a topic that’s not exactly the most … objective for our voting populace. But we just had to know, so we asked a wide swath of coaches …

Should the NCAA Tournament stay at 68, or expand to 72 or 76?

Quotes that stood out

Those who voted for 68

• “My choice will always be 68. It’s hard as hell to make it. I did it as a player. It’s such a finite line that you have to be perfect down the stretch and into March to make it. We won our [mid-major] league, but we knew the only way to make it was to win the tournament and it took an overtime fadeaway 3 at the buzzer to get there. It was earned and that’s the way it should be if you’re not a Power Five. It’s a very special 68 with 68 different stories.”
• “The current format works well and maintains a competitive balance. Keeping it as is preserves the tradition and excitement of the tournament.”
• “Keep it at 68. If high-majors can’t get at-larges based off that, c’mon, man. Y’all got all the money, all the resources, 15 staff members. If you still can’t make the tourney, that’s your fault, not the committee.” 
• “No reason to keep adding more mediocre Power Five schools — which is all that would happen.”
• “It’s been so successful for years. I know college football is a little different and you shut out so many good teams, but that’s what separates us from professional sports. You really gotta work to be good to get into the tournament. Letting more teams in, a team that’s not as deserving gets in and it diminishes the quality of the tournament.”
• “I’d love them to expand because I’m trying to keep my job. We do have the best tournament, so you don’t want to mess with it, so I’d stay at 68.” 
• “It is perfect the way it is. The four or eight teams they would be adding are usually average, underachieving Power Five programs who’ve proven over four months not to be worthy.”
• “Doesn’t make it better. Those extra teams won’t really have done anything of significance to separate themselves as deserving. Just a bigger bubble of OK teams.”
• “We don’t have the teams to go to 72 and the women definitely don’t have the teams to go to 72.”

Those who voted for 72

• “I would expand to 72 and make the ‘First Eight’ the last eight in off the bubble. Stop making low- and mid-majors who won their leagues/tournaments play in Dayton. They earned it. A below-.500-in-league Big Ten team should be the ones earning their spot.”
• “There are always roughly four teams that ‘deserve’ to be in that are on the bubble. Those four getting the chance make it much more clear. More than four more teams would drastically change the field, though. Four is the perfect number.”
• “Make 11-seeds all play-in games and 16-seeds are automatic qualifiers. Tuesday will have a little more buzz, maybe make Wednesday as well.” 
• “Expand. Too many subjective variables in selecting bubble teams. We’ve expanded Division I so we should expand the tournament. Every time the tournament has expanded there’s been naysayers. It hasn’t hurt it. It helped it.”

Those who voted for 76

• “Seventy-six, but only if auto-bids are automatically in the 64-team bracket. I think the additional 12 teams should play an expanded version of the First Four. What I do not want to see is the eight additional mediocre Power Five teams that get into the tournament get seeded directly into the 64-team bracket and 14s, 15s and 16s all have to play in.”
• From a low-major coach: “Would have the 15- and 16-seeds play each other to advance to play 1- and 2-seeds.”
• “I greatly dislike the play-in games, so if they can come up with a number that’s not outrageous but eliminates play-in games (and worst-case maybe creates byes for the top seeds) that would be ideal. I think the play-in round significantly lessens the NCAA experience for the players/coaches.”
• “I’m in a one-bid league at a place where job security is tied directly to making the NCAA Tournament. Let’s make it more feasible for non-Power Fives to get an at-large.”
• “As a mid-major coach, I think the more access we have the better. I know the high-major teams will take most of the additions, but I’d rather fight for a spot or two than stay with the current model. As someone who has played in the NCAA tourney and coached in it, I hate the venom out there toward expansion. There is no better experience than playing in the NCAA tournament and what comes with it. We should all want more of that for our players.”
• “I would like to see [76] only if more good mid-majors are truly considered and not another Power Five that’s not even .500 in their conference. If it’s not done for more mid-majors, then keep it at 68.”

The takeaway

Two years ago, we asked coaches if they would choose an all-at-large format over the long-established auto bid + at-large design that has turned March Madness into a massive annual event in the United States. At the time, it was one of many ideas being explored behind the scenes in college athletics.

That question was our most lopsided in Candid Coaches history: 97% of coaches favored all leagues getting one automatic bid and filling out the rest of the field with at-larges. So it’s no surprise, then, that NCAA powers-that-be heard those cries and effectively abandoned that consideration.

Today’s question is close to a three-way split. Coaches’ reasons for why they voted vary a bit, though their opinion on expansion at the decision-making level carries little weight. Still, we wanted their thoughts. I gotta say, the voting return here surprised me. We polled more than 100 coaches in two dozen leagues and 62% of them voted in favor of expansion. 

That’s a lower number than I would’ve guessed going in, and I bet it’s a lower number than you would’ve guessed. 

I thought a 68-team field wouldn’t garner more than 20% of the vote, yet it comfortably took second … and was just a few votes behind what I expected to win: 76. Plenty of coaches who voted for 72 or 76 inherently believe that an expanded NCAA Tournament brings them better job security. But the problem with that notion is that the more teams you allow in the field, the lesser the accomplishment in getting in. Keep in mind, all those added teams and games would be crammed into Tuesday/Wednesday, before “the tournament really starts” with the Round of 64 on Thursday. 

Among the coaches who voted to stay at 68, more than a dozen came from mid-major leagues. That I didn’t see coming. In fact, in my polling, I would say the high-major coaches were more likely to push for expansion than the coaches outside the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC. Those trend lines indicate the reality of what would happen with an expanded field. Power-conference programs would likely overwhelmingly be given those extra at-large bids. And that’s not something most of us are craving. (I’ve made no secret of the fact I am anti-expansion. )

In having conversations with dozens of coaches on all 10 of our questions this year, this one prompted the most prolonged, thought-out responses. Those convos reinforced just how many coaches are genuine fans of the sport, just like you and me, and want to preserve the spirit of the tournament. Many in favor of expansion still see it that way, but want more teams in because they want that experience for their players. It doesn’t matter to them if the competitiveness of the field is watered down in the process. In that regard, I totally get where they’re coming from.

Plenty who voted for 76 teams also leaned into the idea that the teams who are missing out on making the bracket each year are good enough to deserve to get in. (An opinion that, in my experience, a lot of college basketball fans would push back on.) There are occasionally one or two teams that miss the cut that have good cases … but eight? Never, ever the case. I don’t think we’ve ever had four teams in the NIT that could claim worthy résumé status.

Whether the Division I men’s basketball committee decides to stay at 68 or grow to 72/76, at least the discussion has been unhurried and measured. There are more factors at play here than a lot of people realize. (The women’s tournament and even more costs heaped on to the NCAA’s ledger amid the billion-dollar House case settlement is a major one, yet one only two coaches brought up to me in their answers.) Far as I’m concerned, the NCAA can continue to take all the time it needs on this. We’re maybe not even halfway into an era of mega shifts within the financial landscape of college sports, and bringing on any change to the NCAA Tournament doesn’t feel necessary. 

Previously in Candid Coaches …

• Who will be this season’s best team?
• Who will be this season’s best player?
• Who was the best coaching hire this offseason?
• What is the most amount of NIL money somebody has asked you or your staff to pay for a player?  
• Which programs do you believe have the best NIL situations?
• Should players who don’t transfer receive a bonus year of eligibility?
• Will a woman coach a D-I men’s team by 2030?
• Who will be more successful in the next five years: Pat Kelsey at Louisville or Mark Pope at UK?
• Will UConn make a third straight Final Four in 2025?