Tournament expansion finally arrived with the addition of eight new at-large bids in time for the 2027 NCAA Men’s and Women’s Division I Basketball Tournaments. With the Pac-12 returning after a two-season hiatus, that means this season’s field—and those in the foreseeable future—will feature a combination of 32 automatic bid winners and a whopping 44 at-large teams.
In the final two seasons with a 68-team fields, my preseason brackets featured 39 (2025) and 37 (2026) of the eventual 68, so expect lots of new names to show up once 2027 arrives, and this whole exercise gets a little more serious.