With NCAA Tournament expansion imminent, some of the game's biggest coaches still aren't sold on the idea

Dan Hurley, Tom Izzo, Mark Few, John Calipari and more: Some of the most prominent figures are skittish on changing March Madness

Matt Norlander

May 6, 2026

10:29 pm ET

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8 min read

Getty Images / CBS Sports graphic

Even as NCAA power brokers are ready to expand March Madness for the men's and women's tournaments to 76 teams, the idea remains controversial among some of the most prominent people in college athletics: the basketball coaches.

While some certainly endorse the idea of expansion, the premise has long had detractors amongst its most recognizable ranks.

"I am adamantly opposed. It's totally unnecessary," Gonzaga coach Mark Few told CBS Sports. Few, who has never missed an NCAA Tournament in more than a quarter of a century running the Bulldogs, was just named to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame last month.

"It's the dumbing down of the regular season, which is sad," Few said. "We're out here trying to generate more interest in the regular season and expansion doesn't help. That's where we've been struggling. Plus, the [NCAA Tournament] unit shares, what's happening there? Don't screw with something when you already know it's great. The tournament is great as is."

The NCAA is poised to soon adopt a new model that will increase the field of March Madness for the first time since 2011, when it went from 65 to 68 teams. The new format will inevitably lead to teams with weaker résumés being invited, watering down the competitiveness of getting into the bracket.

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Connecticut's Dan Hurley -- arguably the best coach in college basketball thanks to back-to-back national championships in 2023 and 2024, then another title-game run just last month -- has been publicly opposed to NCAA Tournament expansion in the past. With an official vote quickly approaching, he shares a lot of Few's concerns.

"What I think makes the tournament special is the qualification for it," Hurley told CBS Sports. "You don't want the regular season to be rendered meaningless and to take away from November, December, January, February. The qualification process makes the regular season intense and pressure-packed. It should be a privilege to play in the tournament, not a right, and obviously if it expands too much and you don't have to have a real good season to make it, that would take away from the tournament. Does it get too big?"

Hurley acknowledged he was "torn" due to the overwhelming popularity of March Madness as a three-week-long national event. Viewership is unlikely to sag with more teams. There could be more mid-majors that get in as a result, though skepticism runs wide even in coaching circles over how much more of an opportunity teams from outside the power-conference hierarchy will have.

"I love watching 1/16 games, 8/9 games, Dayton games. But I also love the fact that when it was 64, it was really hard to get in," Hurley said. "You want it to be hard to get in. My biggest thing, too, is, you still have to win six games, right?"

In the proposed and circulated template, six games will still be the number for 52 teams selected. But for the 24 sent to Tuesday and Wednesday's opening round, those schools would have to win seven instead of six to become the national champion.

Few coaches have the national profile of Hurley, but Arkansas' John Calipari is surely one of them. He's consistently been anti-expansion as well. The precipice of seemingly inevitable change hasn't swayed him.

"I am a big believer in the idea that if it's not broke, don't fix it, and I think that applies to the NCAA Tournament," Calipari told CBS Sports. "Having said that, if we are to expand, my hope is that at least half the spots are held for non-Power Four teams. If they do that, we are making the decision for the right reasons. As someone who has been both David, and won some, and Goliath, and lost some, that's what makes this tournament special. We can't afford to lose that special piece of our sport."

Calipari told CBS Sports his biggest frustration remains that so much time, effort and attention has gone to increasing the NCAA Tournament when, in his view, that's not nearly the issue that transferring has become in the past half-decade.

"Our main focus should be on fixing the transfer rules, which would help not only all the teams and athletes in our sport but teams in every sport," he said. "And I'll say it again: That's where our energy should be focused."

Brad Underwood toiled in the lower levels before hitting it big at Illinois. He's coming off his First Final Four as a coach and should have one of the five best teams in the country this season. He told CBS Sports he's vexed over why expansion is even an action in 2026.

"Indifference. Don't understand. Why? Who is pushin