NCAA OKs 68 for tourney

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

The road to the Final Four will have a new look next season.

On Thursday, the NCAA’s board of directors approved expansion from 65 to 68 teams and endorsed a proposal to add three more opening-round games to the schedule. The board also approved new rules governing concussions, and may sanction schools that do not comply.

It’s only the second time in a quarter-century the NCAA has increased the number of teams competing for the men’s national championship.

Now it’s time to start mapping out the details, which could include putting at-large teams in the early games.

“The [men’s basketball] committee will have to study any variety of options and certainly the notion of looking at options involving the last at-large teams in would be one possible option,” NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen said. “We would expect the committee to examine all of the options.”

The decision was not a surprise.

NCAA officials recommended the 68-team field last week after the public loudly complained that going to 80 or 96 teams would water down the NCAA’s marquee event, and network executives insisted they did not need more tourney games to make a profit on the next television contract.

So the NCAA backed the most modest expansion, at least for now. The board gave unanimous consent to the 68-team field with a caveat — it wants the “play-in” games to have more significance.

“Expanding to 68 teams gave us an opportunity to involve more teams in the championship, and in doing that, we were able to enhance the experience of the opening-round game,” Clemson president James Barker, the committee chairman, said in a statement.

The format must still be approved by the men’s basketball committee later this summer, and Shaheen is hoping it’s done by July. The NCAA went from 64 to 65 teams in 2001.