{"id":1184302,"date":"2026-05-20T12:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/?p=1184302"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:38:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T18:38:36","slug":"auburn-among-teams-who-would-have-been-in-expanded-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/auburn-among-teams-who-would-have-been-in-expanded-ncaa-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Auburn Among Teams Who Would Have Been in Expanded NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NCAA announced officially last week that the men\u2019s and women\u2019s NCAA basketball\u00a0tournaments were being expanded from 68 to 76 teams, adding additional play in games and giving more teams the opportunity to make the field.<\/p>\n<p>The move \u2014 like just about every other change in college sports in recent years \u2014 is deeply unpopular with fans. While not many wanted expansion, it is interesting to take a look at the teams who would have had a different fate a year from now.<\/p>\n<p>Chief among them is the Auburn Tigers, who played one of the toughest schedules in college basketball, but ultimately played their\u00a0worst down the stretch\u00a0to be left out of the field.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">These 8 teams would&#8217;ve made the NCAA Tournament this past season if a 76-team field would&#8217;ve been in place.<\/p>\n<p>The NCAA announced today that they will be expanding March Madness to include 76 teams. Do you like this move? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4QcBZQTpXd\">pic.twitter.com\/4QcBZQTpXd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NextRoundLive\/status\/2052491521367200010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 7, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Notably, the SEC would have had two additional teams in Auburn and Oklahoma, likely being joined by others including Cincinnati, Seton Hall, Indiana, New Mexico, San Diego State and Stanford.<\/p>\n<p>After the SEC shattered the record\u00a0two years ago for most tournament teams in one field, perhaps they are going to be able to set a new mark over the coming seasons to put them even further clear as the best conference in college basketball.<\/p>\n<p>As for the Tigers and Steven Pearl, the pressure was already going to be on in year two, but now it will be even more paramount to take Auburn back into the big dance with an even greater margin for error.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>The NCAA announced officially last week that the men\u2019s and women\u2019s NCAA basketball\u00a0tournaments were being expanded from 68 to 76 teams, adding additional play in <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/auburn-among-teams-who-would-have-been-in-expanded-ncaa-tournament\/\" title=\"Auburn Among Teams Who Would Have Been in Expanded NCAA Tournament\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4874,"featured_media":1183973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,145,147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1184302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-au-basketball","8":"category-auburn","9":"category-featured-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ccr2601032053_au_v_uga.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1184304,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184302\/revisions\/1184304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1183973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wnsp.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}