Cincinnati’s Dan Skills Jr. smiles and smiles after scoring Tuesday in the second half of the Big 12 Conference Tournament in Kansas City, Missouri.
Kansas City, Mo. – 12 Commissioner Brett Yomark is in favour of expanding the men’s NCAA tournament to 76 teams, and believes a decision could be made in the coming months, opening up the possibility that the proposed changes will be implemented soon next year.
Yomark spoke on Tuesday before the start of the Big 12 tournament.
“I’m in favor of expanding to 76. I think that’s the right number,” he said. “I think economics has to work frankly. CBS and TNT have marquee (television) assets in tournaments. I know they know that. But in order for us to expand, they need to come to the table and provide the right economics.”
This year’s March Madness edition will be the 40th men’s bracket since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Since then, it has grown to the current 68 teams. The women’s bracket increased to 64 in 1994, and four more teams added in 2022.
Last year, the NCAA presented plans to Division I commissioners expanding male and female tournaments with four or eight teams, along with the option of leaving each field at 68.
In a recent CBS Sports interview, NCAA senior vice president of basketball cardboard, said that he doesn’t expect a vote in the near future, but he has kept the possibility of a spring vote open. Gavitt said changes to the game’s operations and travel are one of many issues to consider, and the decision was “not taken at all in a light-hearted way.”
“Even on a modest level, expansion is more complicated and complicated than I’ve been perceived and reported because it’s expensive,” said Gabit, who helped his father, Dave Gabitt, oversee the 1985 expansion as chairman of the selection committee.
Gavitt said in an interview with CBS that he is not sure if the field will expand, but that he has sounded more positive about the possibilities than he had been a few years ago. Names, images, likeness, meeting reorganization and transfer portals have changed the dynamics, and Gavitt said that men’s basketball in particular could be suitable for handling it.
“There’s no deep sports overall and there’s more parity than male college basketball,” he said. “There are great basketballs that have played at all levels of men’s basketball right now, so I think it’s important to keep the tournament modern and relevant based on what’s going on in college track and field.”
It was an incident that was carried out by Yomark. He said Tuesday that he believes he has more appetite for the team and games.
“I think there will be some decisions over the next 90 or 60 days,” Yomark said. “There’s a great asset here because no one wants to be diluted. We’ll see how it works.”
