The Field of 76: The Unspoken Plot to Kill Mid-Majors

Credit: Sports Illustrated

The hope that tournament expansion would subside for at least another season is dead.

The NCAA announced on April 28^th that the Field of 68 will expand to 76 teams, including eight new  at-large bids. These bids are aimed largely at getting more power conference teams into the  tournament and creating a new opening round that would see some 11, 12, 13, 15 and all 16  seeds duke it out for a chance to move to Round 1.  

This move has created wide scrutiny ranging from analysts to fans alike, all of whom see the writing on the wall. These changes will inherently hurt mid-major programs. 

“NCAA tournament expansion continues a multiyear pendulum swing in favor of power  conferences,” says ESPN Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi. “It is a natural extension of the expanded  conferences, as the current coalition of power conferences and the Big East comprises 79  schools compared with 73 a decade ago. Each of those programs expects to make the NCAA  tournaments every season, so the pressure for ‘bigger’ was never going to subside, despite  overwhelming sentiment that more teams won’t necessarily make for a ‘better’ tourney.” 

Most mid-major teams fall into the double-digit seed category, even despite 25+ wins on their resume. The 2026 tournament would have looked completely different if under the new format. Teams  like McNeese and Akron, who earned 12-seeds on automatic bids, would have been moved to  13-seeds to make room for more additional at-large teams. Teams like Oklahoma, Auburn,  Indiana, New Mexico, Virginia Tech, and Stanford would have likely nabbed at-large bids, despite  Auburn (17-16, 7-11 SEC), Oklahoma (19-15, 7-11 SEC), and Indiana (18-14, 9-11 Big Ten) having  terrible records.

Griff, co-host of the famed High Point-based basketball podcast “The Jimmy and Griff Show,” shared similar sentiment to Lunardi saying:  

“I think it is terrible, 68 is stretching it – I think the first fours get almost a head-start and better  opportunities to win (as we have seen) – but how are you going to say Auburn who barely went  .500 and Indiana who had a similar season deserve to be in? Because they have more money  and play in a better conference? That’s unfair to every mid major ever. If they instead used it to  create more opportunities for mid-majors? They could win me over possibly but overall, I think  it’s unnecessary. The game is changing so much that it feels like the NBA.” 

Traditional mid-major powerhouses like Winthrop and High Point (Big South), Charleston (CAA),  and Furman (SoCon), would suffer the consequences every qualifying season. High Point won the Big South this past season with a 31-5 record overall and 15-1 record in the Big South. Despite having only 5 losses, High Point’s lower NET ranking would have hurt their seeding this past season under the new format. Cui Bono? The P4. High Point would have dropped to a 13-seed in favor of Auburn or Oklahoma.

Former Winthrop basketball guard, Bjorn Broman, offered his two cents: 

“It’ll definitely take a while to get used to, that’s for sure. I like the idea of more basketball, but will the committee just add more Power 4 schools? Or is this to help mid-majors? I don’t think  adding more sub-.500 Power 4 schools is a good thing. At the end of the day, I’m happy we get a  few more games in March, but not sure if it was the right move.” 

The tournament expansion is just one of a myriad of issues the NCAA has drawn criticism for since 2020, including issues in revenue sharing, the transfer portal, and NIL collectives, to name a few.  

Earlier this month, UConn WBB coach Geno Auriemma issued a warning regarding the deluge of reform. He thinks mid-majors will struggle even more in the new  landscape and pointed to the transfer portal as evidence.

“The portal and the revenue share, I think that was the death of the mid-majors, the death of  high school players coming to play college basketball,” Auriemma said. “It’s never been harder  for a high school kid to have the same opportunities that an existing college player already has. When your choice is, go get a high school senior or go get a college sophomore for your team, a  lot of coaches are deciding that getting a college sophomore is way better. The place where they usually go get them is a mid-major. So, you’re going to see less and less of those mid-majors  competing in the NCAA tournament.” 

Because of all the recent changes in college basketball, Coach Auriemma’s ominous warning appears to be approaching quicker than anyone expected. We are staring down the barrel of Mid-Major extinction as we know it.

The main reason, as reported by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, is the “Unspoken Threat.” What is said “Unspoken Threat?” Expand the tournament or else. Or else the Power 4 Conferences will break away and form their own tournament. All along the NCAA feared that should they not acquiesce to the Power Conferences, their golden goose, post-season tournaments, would lose its luster. While most of us live for the Cinderella runs, the NCAA knows P4s bring eyeballs to the product and thus, hold the leverage. Without P4s, the postseason and, in turn, the NCAA, are decimated.

The P4 nuclear option, however, was never viable and never will be. It was a made-up threat to strongarm the NCAA and Commissioner Charlie Baker to their collective knees. As foolhardy as power conference commissioners may be, they are not shortsighted enough to cause such fallout amongst the NCAA. An asinine act of that magnitude would be irreversible and ultimately cause more damage than it’s worth.  

So, where does this go from here?  

Earlier this decade, the SEC and Big 12 expanded to 16 teams. In response, the ACC and Big Ten  expanded to 18 schools a piece. Even with exorbitantly lucrative media deals and superconferences, the commissioners, university presidents, and athletic directors weren’t satisfied. Sixty Eight teams simply wasn’t enough to qualify the 12^th-place ACC squad or 13-win SEC team.

So here we are. The NCAA capitulated to meet the demands of the Power Conferences by expanding the Field of 68 to 76 teams and, in the process, killed mid-majors’ aspirations of postseason glory. All of this to get the worst Power Conference teams into the Big Dance? Bullshit. No fan, media member, player, coach, mid-major athletic director, mid-major president, or mid-major commissioner wanted this. Nor should they accept it.

Plainly stated, this was the unspoken plot to kill mid-majors. Squeezing blood from a turnip. More power teams, more money, less fretting over upsets. A perfect formula for disaster.

My prediction? It’s gonna blow up in the NCAA’s face.