According to CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, the number of college basketball games played in a season is set to increase. Norlander reports beginning with the 2026-2027 season, teams can play on 32 occasions. They will not be required to but the move allows programs to schedule more nonconference matchups any given year.

“College basketball’s regular season is set to expand,” Norlander said. “Barring an unexpected and extremely unlikely motion to vote against, the NCAA Division I Council will approve on Wednesday an increase from 31 to 32 games, beginning with the 2026-27 season, sources told CBS Sports.”

***UPDATE*** – Later Wednesday evening, Norlander confirmed the deal was done. The change will apply to both men’s and women’s college basketball.

Norlander added that multiple team events (MTEs) are in the middle of the decision to expand. Events such as the Player’s Festival in Las Vegas can produce as many as four games in the later portion of November. Adding a game to the overall total gives schools more flexibility.

Finding some better high-profile nonconference matchups appears to be another goal, especially in the later portion of the regular season. Norlander said, “The additional game should also enable more teams to bring back nonconference opportunities in January or February.” Duke facing Illinois last year is an example, as is the Blue Devils recently agreeing to a matchup against Michigan in 2026.

As of now, no mention of expanding the calendar as to when the season begins. Early November appears to still be the target date. For example, this season’s opening night will take place on Nov. 4, spanning all the way to the first Monday in April for the national championship game.

Decision on NCAA Tournament expansion expected soon

Will the NCAA Tournament expand beyond the current format to include more teams? We should know soon enough.

According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the decision or whether to expand the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments for 2026 “is expected to come in the next few weeks.” Thamel notes that the expansion would be to no more than 76 schools, which would be a maximum increase of eight new teams from the current format.

Thamel also notes that the NCAA remains engaged in talks with its media partners over any potential changes. That’s no surprise, as the primary driver in any decision is likely to be maximizing viewership and revenue.

The last major expansion to the NCAA Tournament field came in 2011. At that point, the field expanded from 64 teams to 68 teams. That brought about the advent of the play-in game.

On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report

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This year’s drop is significant when compared to the years before anyone had heard of COVID-19. There was a spike of college players jumping into the draft in the pandemic’s aftermath, when they were granted a free eligibility year to temporarily make even a fourth-year senior an “early” entrant.

But those numbers had fallen as those five-year players cycled out of college basketball, and they’re now below pre-pandemic levels. That decline coincides with NIL’s July 2021 arrival, from athletes doing paid appearances or social-media endorsements to boosters forming collectives offering NIL packages amounting to de facto salaries.

As a result:

— Eighty-two players appeared on the NBA’s list of early entrants primarily from American colleges with a smattering of other teams, down 49% from 2024 (162) and nearly 47% compared to the four-year average from 2016-19 (153.5);

— Thirty-two remained after withdrawal deadlines, down from 62 last year and 72.0 from 2016-19;

— Adding international prospects, 109 players declared for the draft, down from 201 last year and 205.0 from 2016-19;

More college players weighing options

Duke coach Jon Scheyer understands draft dynamics, both for no-doubt headliners and prospects facing less clarity. He sees college athlete compensation as a “legitimate gamechanger.”

“Hopefully it allows players to decide what’s truly best for their game,” Scheyer told the AP. “It allows them to analyze: ‘Am I actually ready for this or not?’ Where money doesn’t have to be the deciding factor. Because if money’s the deciding factor, that’s why you see kids not stick. The NBA’s cutthroat. It just is.”

The Blue Devils are expected to have three players selected in the first-round Wednesday, including presumptive No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg alongside top-10 prospects Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach. They also had players sorting through draft decisions.

Freshman Isaiah Evans — a slender wing with explosive scoring potential — withdrew instead of chasing first-round status through the draft process. Incoming transfer Cedric Coward from Washington State rapidly rose draft boards after the combine and remained in the draft.

“There’s no substituting the money you’re going to make if you’re a top-15, top-20 pick,” said Scheyer, entering Year 4 as successor to retired Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. “But if you’re not solidified as a first-round pick, why risk it when you can have a solid year and a chance to go up or be in the same position the following season?”

College compensation is re-shaping the draft pool

Langdon, himself a former Duke first-rounder, sees that evolution, too.

His Pistons had their first playoff appearance since 2019, but lack a first-round selection and own a single pick in Thursday’s second round. Fewer candidates could make the already imperfect science of drafting even trickier in this new reality.

According to the NBA’s 2024-25 rookie scale, a player going midway through the first round would make roughly $3.5 million in first-year salary. That figure would drop to about $2.8 million at pick No. 20, $2.3 million at No. 25 and $2.1 million with the 30th and final first-round draftee.

AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds and AP Sports Writer Larry Lage contributed to this report.

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Key Takeaways

• The NCAA and the Power Five conferences will pay $2.8 billion in damages to current and former student-athletes as a result of their settlement of the landmark antitrust litigation.
• Division I colleges and universities may now directly compensate student-athletes up to a $20.5 million cap for the 2025-2026 school year – opening the door for revenue sharing between athletic departments and their student-athletes.
• All noninstitutional, third-party name, image and likeness (NIL) agreements valued at $600 or more must be reported and independently reviewed for compliance with the terms of the settlement.
• The NCAA’s former limits on the number of scholarships designated for college sports teams have been eliminated and replaced with limits on the number of players a team may carry on its roster.
• Several legal questions remain unanswered concerning the administration of the terms of the settlement agreement, including whether future distributions of school revenue will comply with Title IX.

What was once inconceivable in the world of college sports has quickly become a reality. After years of litigation over its rules against athlete compensation, the NCAA has finally changed its tone. In a highly anticipated decision issued on June 6, Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final settlement agreement between the NCAA, the Power Five conferences and a class of former student-athletes in House v. NCAA. The settlement resolves a trio of consolidated cases that allege the NCAA’s scholarship limits and additional restraints on athlete compensation violate anticompetition laws. Now, for the first time in its history, the NCAA will permit colleges and universities to directly pay their student-athletes effective July 1.

$2.8 Billion in Damages To Be Paid by the NCAA and Power Five Conferences

The terms of the settlement agreement require the NCAA to pay more than $2.8 billion in damages to members of multiple student-athlete classes to the lawsuit, which will include all student-athletes who were eligible for Division I competitions at any time on or after June 15, 2016. An overwhelming majority of the damages paid to student-athletes will go to men’s football and basketball players.

Athlete Compensation up to a $20.5 Million Cap

The settlement also outlines the NCAA’s new athlete compensation framework spanning 10 years from the date of Wilken’s final approval. The NCAA will now allow schools to pay their student-athletes up to a $20.5 million cap (the equivalent of 22% of the average athletic department revenue for Power Five conference schools) for the 2025-2026 school year and eventually up to a $32 million cap in 2034-2035. The new rules permit schools to compensate athletes via revenue sharing from funds obtained through the school’s use of the athlete’s NIL, such as profits made from television contracts and events like the College Football Playoff.

Required Reporting and Independent Review for Third-Party NIL Agreements

In a significant change from historical practice, the NCAA will not act as the enforcing authority on the rules of the settlement. Instead, the Power Five conferences will establish an independent review process for third-party NIL deals worth more than $600, including contracts between student-athletes and school-affiliated entities or individuals (i.e., boosters and collectives), which must advance a valid business purpose within a reasonable range of compensation.

The newly established enforcement agency, the College Sports Commission,[1] will be responsible for policing compliance with the terms of the House settlement and evaluating whether reported deals meet fair market value standards. The terms of the settlement require athletes to report qualifying NIL partnerships that exceed the $600 threshold to the commission, and in the event that the proposed deal does not clear the commission’s screening process (which will be conducted by Deloitte, through use of its platform NIL Go), the parties to the deal may revise their agreement or submit the issue to a neutral arbitrator before initiating any legal action.

Scholarship Limits Out, Roster Limits In

The final piece of the House settlement eliminates the scholarship limits that were previously designated by the NCAA for each sport in Division I. Going forward, schools will be able to exercise far more discretion in their assignment of scholarship money to student-athletes across all athletic programs. However, in the interest of maintaining competitive balance, the NCAA will now place firm limits on the number of athletes that a team may carry on its roster.

The initially proposed roster limits were met with several objections from student-athletes concerned that current team members, in particular walk-on student-athletes, would lose their place on their respective rosters due to cuts. For example, football rosters will now shrink to a maximum of 105 athletes and many Division I football programs have previously carried as many as 140 players on the team.[2] In April, Wilken informed the parties that she would not approve the settlement unless the agreement was revised to address the roster limit concerns raised by objectors.

Though the final settlement agreement does not grandfather current players into their respective roster spots, it clarifies that current team members will not count toward their team’s total roster calculation for the rest of their eligibility period. In the event that a current player is cut from their team, the school will be required to honor the player’s scholarship.

Legal Challenges on the Horizon

The House settlement’s new athlete compensation model will provide student-athletes with ample opportunities to monetize their NIL, but there are still many open questions about the ways in which the settlement terms will be administered. Wilken addressed several legal concerns raised by objectors, but ultimately, her findings could not possibly address all the potential legal challenges that may arise in the future.

Notably, objectors to the settlement have already questioned whether the damages allocation and any back payments to former student-athletes may violate Title IX by unfairly favoring male athletes over female athletes,[3] whether state NIL laws that conflict with the settlement would be preempted by the agreement, whether the $20.5 million cap affects any potential collective bargaining rights that student-athletes may attempt to assert in future efforts to unionize, and whether student athletes may assert legal challenges to the compensation model in future efforts to be recognized as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

[1] https://www.collegesportscommission.org/enforcement

[2] https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football/article/with-ncaa-house-settlement-hanging-in-balance-a-new-roster-limit-proposal-has-emerged-151555698.html

[3] https://frontofficesports.com/group-of-women-athletes-files-appeal-of-house-v-ncaa-settlement-approval/

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Starting in 2026-27, college basketball teams can add one more game to their schedules. If you just heard a whoop of joy from the Joe Craft Center, it’s because we’re slowly inching towards Mark Pope’s dream of 40 regular-season games.

According to Matt Norlander, this afternoon, the NCAA Division I Council is expected to approve an increase from 31 to 32 regular-season games starting with the 2026-27 season. The Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Oversight Committees voted in favor of the change in March. Thirty-one games have been the max for regular-season schedules since 2006-07, when the format changed to 28 or 29 predetermined games plus three-game or two-game multi-team events. Starting in 2026, teams will have the option of adding one more regular-season game, which could take the total number of games played for teams in the NCAA championship game to 41.

Norlander says the NCAA and coaches hope the move will increase the number of quality non-conference games, the likelihood of some of those taking place in the middle of the conference schedule, and, of course, the potential for more revenue.

Multiple high-major coaches told CBS Sports in recent months that they are actively pursuing and hoping to play a nonconference game in the midst of the conference season moving forward, finding benefits in advance of postseason play in March. 

The move to 32 is also, naturally, being done with money in mind. One more game will mean one more home and/or neutral-court opportunity for a lot of high-major programs, which are now looking for revenue in any way possible after the House case settlement ushered in revenue sharing for college athletes. Home gates at games bring in more revenue to be able to pay athletes. Sources around college athletics speculated that the increase to 32 games is just the first phase, and that by early-to-mid 2030s the regular season could go to 34 or 35 games prior to the start of conference tournament play.

Matt Norlander, CBS Sports

I have a feeling Mark Pope might be one of the coaches Norlander spoke to. Pope has long advocated expanding the regular-season schedule to 40 games. Thirty-two is a good start.

“I just think it’s time to expand our season out to a 40-game season,” Pope said in late February. “Like, it should be a 40-game season, especially with all the change and the turnover and the lack of continuity of teams, and also with revenue sharing and everything else, it doesn’t make any sense that we’re at a 31-game season. It makes no sense. And so I’m a massive advocate, maybe the only one in the world. But we need to expand the season to 40 games. Even for the guys that go on to be pros, it gives them a better sense.”

Pope is already taking advantage of the NCAA’s new rules allowing Division I teams to play exhibitions against one another. Purdue and Georgetown will come to Rupp Arena in October for preseason games. He can’t get quite as creative as he’d like due to Kentucky’s prior scheduling obligations, but this should help. In May, he even suggested a 35-game regular-season schedule, telling reporters he wants to make Kentucky’s slate as challenging and entertaining as possible.

“Imagine if we have four extra games that we can put on our schedule, where we go play a big-time neutral game, and set up a home-and-home, and do an in-state game that people here really care about, and just give us a little more flexibility in this deal,” Pope said. “Come on, man, let us do a home-and-home with Kansas. Let’s go. Why am I not going to Storrs to play a game? We need some more flexibility. And also, let us get to Maui.”

Baby steps. Also, someone should probably get a head start on those Mark Pope 41-0 jerseys/shirts.