CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — While the NCAA considers expanding the March Madness field in the coming years, North Carolina athletics director Bubba Cunningham will have a key seat at the negotiating table.
The NCAA announced Thursday that Cunningham is the vice-chair of its Division I Men’s Basketball Committee for the upcoming academic year and will move up to chair that group that selects the tournament field during the 2024-25 season.
Southwestern Athletic Conference commissioner Charles McClelland will chair the committee this academic year, beginning on Sept. 1.
“It’s an incredible honor to be selected by my peers,” Cunningham, UNC’s athletics director since 2011, said in a statement. “During my tenure at North Carolina, I’ve seen my colleagues Ron Wellman from Wake Forest (2014) and Kevin White from Duke (2020) chair this group and admired them for having this great professional opportunity. To be able to follow in the footsteps of those men and others, including Charles McClelland, who I look forward to supporting this year, is quite the privilege.”
The committee completed a three-day meeting this week where possible tournament expansion was discussed. While no change to the current 68-team field is imminent, several scenarios were examined.
“The committee and staff will continue studying options and gathering feedback from various constituents,” Dan Gavitt, NCAA senior vice president of basketball, said in a statement. “Whether the tournament expands or not remains to be seen.”
The idea of including more teams in the tournament began grew from last January’s recommendations by the Division I Transformation Committee, which was formed in 2021. That group said a good goal for championship inclusion is 25% of teams in sports that have at least 200 participating schools.
This season, 351 teams will participate in men’s college basketball at the Division I level with 11 other schools currently in the process of moving up from Division II to Division I. Not including those 11, that means 19.4% of teams will be selected for the NCAA Tournament.
The tournament’s last major increase in participants came in 1985, when the 64-team field was compiled. That was an increase of 11 over the previous 53 teams. At that time, 282 schools played Division I men’s basketball.
The field jumped from 64 to 65 in 2001, and from 65 to 68 in 2011 when the First Four games were added to the bracket.
“The committee must be good stewards for the Division I men’s basketball championship,” Gavitt said. “They are committed to doing their due diligence looking at a few different models to make an informed decision that’s in the best interests of the championship, and that may very well include deciding against expansion.”
For the 2023-24 academic year, the committee includes Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne, Butler athletics director Barry Collier, Minnesota athletics director Mark Coyle, ,Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill, Arizona athletics director Dave Heeke, Temple athletics director Arthur Johnson, Samford athletics director Martin Newton, Saint Peter’s athletics director Rachelle Paul, Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard and Big Sky Conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill.
Last year’s committee chair, Bradley athletics director Chris Reynolds, and Atlantic 10 Conference commissioner Bernadette McGlade are cycling off the committee.
