How Expansion Could Shape March Madness

By: Manny Shklar

April 7, 2026

Photo Credit: Yahoo Sports

The 2026 March Madness tournament marks another year of college basketball being dominated by the power conferences and top teams being better than ever. Many are even willing to argue that the era of Cinderella runs is over, as it feels almost guaranteed to see only the top seeds advance to the Final Four. Despite top talent better than ever, and the next tiers seemingly getting worse, the NCAA is now exploring the idea of expanding their hallmark tournament.

The March Madness tournament has delivered again, providing buzzer beaters and exciting players who will go down in history. The retired great Mike Krzyzewski, more commonly known as Coach K, has warned the NCAA and president Charlie Baker, saying he “wouldn’t mess with gold, and the NCAA tournament is certainly that,” as evidenced by this season’s.

It is certainly reasonable to say that the Cinderella era is dead, even though University of Iowa made the Elite Eight as a 9 seed, and many teams kept it close. While the league has argued that adding 4-8 teams would lead to more upsets and more chances at these exciting runs, the ever-growing talent gap implies that fans could see bigger blowouts and even fewer early upsets. To many, if not most fans, seeing a gritty underdog barely beat a consistent powerhouse is the best part of March, but the NCAA’s proposal could make that less common than ever.

A big point of contention around this debate lies in the debate between Auburn and Miami Ohio. On one hand, Auburn is in the Southeastern Conference and played arguably the toughest schedule in the nation, leading to many quality wins but also losses to high-caliber opponents. Miami Ohio, however, went undefeated in the regular season playing one of the easiest schedules in basketball, but ultimately lost in the first round of their conference tournament to an abysmal UMass team. The selection committee decided to give Miami Ohio a bid to play a play-in game against another SEC team, SMU, and Miami Ohio won handily, though they were uncompetitive in their first round loss to Tennessee.

Miami Ohio is undeniably a great story, but they likely would not have even been considered for a bid in past years given the field of teams. The worst seed to win a game in the tournament this season was 12 seeded High Point University, another mid-major. Considering the lack of talent in the low tiers, expanding the tournament will only allow the top teams to gain more control and limit the opportunities for worse teams to go on magical Cinderella runs.