Baker: NCAA tourney growth call likely in fall

• Jeff BorzelloJul 24, 2025, 02:59 PM ET

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  Jeff Borzello is a basketball recruiting expert. He has actually signed up with ESPN in 2014.

NCAA president Charlie Baker stated Thursday that he thinks a decision on whether to expand the NCAA tournament will be made “at some point this fall,” making it less most likely it would affect the 2026 guys’s and women’s tournaments.Baker, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., said the greatest challenge for competition growth-particularly one that would occur in less than 8 months -is logistics.Editor’s Picks 2 Related “The competition needs to start after the conference championships are over,”he said.”

And right now Choice Sunday takes place like 2 hours after the last competition game ends and has to finish by the Tuesday before the Masters. There’s not a lot of space there. Any expansion, we’re going to need to figure out how to put it in and after that logistically how to make it work.”Baker formerly informed Yahoo Sports, which first reported the lessening likelihood of a broadened NCAA tournament for the upcoming season, that a choice would need to be made by August in order to work for the 2026 tournaments.On Thursday, Baker also made the case for growth, one that has actually been repeated by conference executives considering that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey initially publicly broached the subject in 2022.

“There are, every year, some truly excellent teams that don’t get into the tournament for a bunch of factors,”Baker said.”One of the factors they do not get in is due to the fact that we have 32 automated qualifiers. There are 32 conferences in D1 and their conference champ enters the tournament. Now, I love that. I think it’s great and I never desire that to alter. However that implies there’s only 36 slots left for everyone else and oftentimes there are groups that are amongst the 50 or 60 finest groups in the country. “He mentioned 2024 St. John’s and 2024 Indiana State as teams that must have remained in the NCAA tournament field as at-large bids, specifically referencing the Red Storm’s close loss to UConn in that year’s Big East tournament.”

I don’t buy the concept that some of the teams that currently get left out aren’t excellent,”Baker stated. “They are. And I think that sucks.”The committees for males’s and women’s Division I basketball met independently previously this month to go over growth, but no choices were made at the meeting. The NCAA’s Department I board next satisfies in August.” The subject of broadening the field for each

champion was discussed at length but no choice or suggestion was made,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt stated in a statement after the conferences.” The still feasible outcomes include the competitions remaining at 68 teams or broadening the fields to either 72 or 76 groups in advance of the 2026 or 2027 champions.”