Dick Vitale was not happy Tuesday when news surfaced that the NCAA recommended that its annual men’s and women’s basketball tournaments be expanded.
After a yearlong slate of meetings, the NCAA’s transformation committee released a 40-page final report to several media members, sharing that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments should include 25% of participating teams in the sport. For perspective, both men and women’s basketball tournaments consist of 68 teams, or nearly 19% of the sport’s 350 programs.
If the tournaments increased to the 25% threshold, that means the respective tournaments would expand by approximately 20 teams, bringing the total number to 90 from 68.