NCAA Tournament expansion unlikely through 2026

Plans to expand the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournament fields appear to be in a timeout.

There had been talk of increasing from 68 teams to 72 or 76 teams in 2026 but there likely is not enough time left to finalize the details, NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt told CBS Sports.

"The committees are continuing their ongoing analysis of whether or not to expand the championships, and if so, how to go about doing that," Gavitt said on the "Eye on College Basketball" podcast.

Gavitt said there's still a chance that the tournaments won't expand at all, at least not in the "near term."

"The most important thing to get across, this is definitely not a fait accompli," he said. "The recommendation to not expand the tournaments is absolutely a potential outcome here in the short-term."

Organizers are still studying the financial burden and travel demands of a larger tournament, while also weighing opinions on whether expanded fields would water down the competitive viability of the events.

The landscape of college sports is also still navigating changes such as conference realignments, NIL deals and the widespread use of the transfer portal.

"It's not taken in a lighthearted way at all because of the success of the tournaments and how important they are to college basketball overall," Gavitt said. "Expansion, even in a modest level, is complex, more complex than I think than has been recognized and reported, because it is expensive."

This year's NCAA Tournament will mark the 40th men's bracket since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985 (the women's tourney expanded to 64 in 1994).

--Field Level Media