The NCAA First Four becomes the March Madness Opening Round in 2027: 12 games instead of four, on Tuesday, March 16, and Wednesday, March 17, 2027, split between UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio, and INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita, Kansas. The field of 76 is picked on Selection Sunday, March 14, so there are no matchups or lines yet.
The last First Four, in March 2026, sent Texas on a run to the Sweet 16. The 11th-seeded Longhorns beat NC State 68-66 in Dayton, then beat BYU and Gonzaga before losing 79-77 to Purdue.
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What changes in 2027
The tournament goes from 68 teams to 76, the first expansion since the field reached 68 in 2011. The NCAA says the 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers play six of the Opening Round games, and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams play the other six. The winners join a 64-team first round on Thursday, March 18, and Friday, March 19.
| Round | Games | Dates | Sites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selection Sunday | Field and bracket | Sunday, March 14 | |
| Opening Round | 12 | March 16 and 17 | Dayton, Ohio, and Wichita, Kansas |
| First round | 32 | March 18 and 19 | Eight sites |
| Final Four | 3 | April 3 and 5 | Ford Field, Detroit |
The old First Four had four games, two between the last automatic qualifiers and two between the last at-large teams, all in Dayton.
How the 2026 First Four went
All four games were at UD Arena, and two of the four favorites lost outright. Lines are the ones in ESPN’s game data.
| Date | Game | Line | Final |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue., March 17 | No. 16 Howard vs. No. 16 UMBC | HOW -1.5 | Howard 86, UMBC 83 |
| Tue., March 17 | No. 11 Texas vs. No. 11 NC State | NCSU -1.5 | Texas 68, NC State 66 |
| Wed., March 18 | No. 16 Prairie View A&M vs. No. 16 Lehigh | LEH -3.5 | Prairie View A&M 67, Lehigh 55 |
| Wed., March 18 | No. 11 Miami (OH) vs. No. 11 SMU | SMU -6.5 | Miami (OH) 89, SMU 79 |
Miami (OH), a +250 underdog, beat SMU by 10. Texas won as a small underdog. Howard covered as a 1.5-point favorite, and Prairie View A&M beat Lehigh by 12 as a 3.5-point underdog.
The first round was harder. Howard lost 101-80 to No. 1 Michigan, Prairie View A&M lost 114-55 to No. 1 Florida, and Miami (OH) lost 78-56 to No. 6 Tennessee. Only Texas won again.
What First Four winners have done next
The NCAA’s record of the at-large winners since 2011 shows how often they keep going. In 13 of the 15 tournaments from 2011 to 2026, at least one at-large First Four winner also won a first-round game; 2019 and 2025 were the exceptions. Two went to the Final Four: VCU in 2011 and UCLA in 2021.
The automatic qualifiers have a thinner record. Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023 is the only one to win a first-round game, beating No. 1 Purdue 63-58 as a 16 seed.
Betting the Opening Round
From 2027 both kinds of Opening Round game triple, from two each to six each, so there will be six games like Texas and NC State between at-large teams and six between automatic qualifiers. When the lines come out on Selection Sunday, turn each moneyline into a chance first: -310 implies 75.6% and +250 implies 28.6%.
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