The 2026-27 college basketball season: a Nov. 1 tip in Rome, a 76-team bracket, and a champion that changed coaches

The calendar

The 2026-27 men's Division I season runs from Sunday, Nov. 1 through the national championship game on Monday, April 5, and it is the first season played toward a 76-team NCAA tournament bracket. The first game tips at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) on Nov. 1, when Notre Dame plays Villanova at the Palazzetto dello Sport in Rome. Games continue on Monday, Nov. 2 and the days after. [S1]

Both schools announced the Rome doubleheader on April 17. Notre Dame's release calls it the Eternal City Tip-Off, a collaboration of On Location, Players Era and FOX Sports, with the men's game on Fox and the women's game following on FS1 at 11 a.m. CT (noon ET). Both schools say the event was inspired by the election of Pope Leo XIV, a Villanova alumnus, and both describe a planned papal audience before the games. Notre Dame says it will be the first regular-season game outside the United States in its men's program's history. [S2][S3]

Nov. 2 brings the Field of 68 tipoff event: eight games in Rock Hill, S.C., and Sioux Falls, S.D., starting at 11 p.m. CT Sunday (midnight ET Monday) with High Point vs. Liberty and ending with Furman vs. Bethune-Cookman at 7 p.m. CT (8 p.m. ET). [S1]

The early-season events

Later in November the calendar bunches up in Las Vegas and Hawaii. NCAA.com lists the Players Era 8 (Nov. 17-19) and Players Era 16 (Nov. 24-28) tournaments in Las Vegas and the Maui Invitational (Nov. 23-25). [S1] CBS Sports reported the Players Era brackets on May 21. The eight-team event opens Nov. 17 with Houston-Rutgers, Florida-Notre Dame, Auburn-West Virginia and Kansas-UNLV. The 16-team event opens Nov. 24 with Tennessee-Maryland, Iowa State-San Diego State, St. John's-Oregon, Louisville-Texas Tech, Gonzaga-Kansas State, Baylor-Alabama, Michigan-Creighton and Miami-TCU, with a championship game on Saturday, Nov. 28. The two events total 37 games, and the same report says Duke and UConn meet in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving Eve in a one-off game. [S15]

The Maui Invitational at the Lahaina Civic Center opens Monday, Nov. 23 with Clemson vs. Ole Miss at 1:30 p.m. CT (2:30 p.m. ET), followed by BYU vs. Washington, Providence vs. VCU and Arizona vs. Colorado State. The championship game is Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 1:30 p.m. CT on ESPN. USC is the defending Maui champion after beating Arizona State last year. [S14]

The tournament: 76 teams, a Detroit finish

The NCAA announced on May 7 that the men's and women's fields grow from 68 to 76 starting in 2027. The men's tournament begins Tuesday, March 16, with 12 games branded the March Madness Opening Round: instead of two games a day in Dayton, there will be three games each day in Dayton and three each day in a second city, which the release left unnamed. The 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers play in half of those games; the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams play in the other half. The round of 64 stays on Thursday and Friday, and the NCAA says regional and Final Four dates are unchanged. [S4]

The second Opening Round city is now set. NCAA.com lists Dayton's UD Arena and Wichita's INTRUST Bank Arena for March 16-17, and Selection Sunday is Sunday, March 14. First and second rounds run March 18-21 in Pittsburgh, Omaha, Fort Worth, Spokane, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Louisville and Sacramento. Regionals are March 25-28 in San Antonio, Los Angeles, Kansas City and New York. The Final Four is Saturday, April 3 and the championship game Monday, April 5, both at Ford Field in Detroit. [S5][S6]

The NCAA frames expansion partly as a revenue decision. Its release says it can award more than $131 million in new revenue distributions to member schools over the remaining six years of its broadcast agreements, that the value of the rights agreement rises $50 million a year on average, and that the added bids lift postseason access from 18% of Division I basketball teams to 21%. [S4]

The champion, and its new coach

Michigan is the defending champion. The Wolverines beat UConn 69-63 in Indianapolis on April 6 for the program's first title since 1989 and finished 37-3. Elliot Cadeau led Michigan with 19 points, the Wolverines made 25 of 28 free throws, and the win gave the Big Ten its first men's title since Michigan State in 2000. [S7]

The coach who won it is gone. Dusty May left for the Dallas Mavericks, who announced the hire on June 23. NBA.com notes he replaces Jason Kidd and went 64-13 in two seasons at Michigan. [S9] On July 10, Michigan named Mike Boynton Jr. head coach on a two-year contract. Boynton had been Michigan's defensive coordinator for two seasons after seven seasons as head coach at Oklahoma State. Michigan's announcement says the Wolverines led the nation in KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency in 2025-26 and produced three lottery picks in the 2026 NBA Draft: Morez Johnson Jr. at No. 9, Yaxel Lendeborg at No. 11 and Aday Mara at No. 12. [S8]

Boynton's first season got harder before it started. On Sept. 1, Michigan announced that five-star freshman guard Brandon McCoy Jr. tore an ACL during the team's European tour in Lithuania and will miss the season. CBS Sports reports McCoy had been in line to start next to returning guards Elliot Cadeau and Trey McKenney, that Michigan lost four starters and its head coach from the title team, and that the rest of the roster stayed intact except LJ Cason, who transferred to Miami after May left. [S13]

The carousel and the portal

By CBS Sports' count, the Michigan change was the 13th head-coaching change at a high-major program in 2026, out of 53 changes across Division I. North Carolina replaced Hubert Davis with former NBA coach Michael Malone on a six-year contract totaling $50 million. Creighton's Greg McDermott retired and was succeeded by Alan Huss. Cincinnati hired Jerrod Calhoun from Utah State. Kansas State hired Casey Alexander from Belmont after firing Jerome Tang. LSU brought back Will Wade from NC State, Syracuse hired Gerry McNamara from Siena, and Arizona State hired Randy Bennett after 25 years at Saint Mary's. [S10]

On rosters, CBS Sports' July review of the transfer portal calls the 2026 class less talent-rich than 2025 because retention was a priority for many teams. It singles out Louisville's six-transfer haul led by Kansas center Flory Bidunga, Texas's group led by TCU forward David Punch and Colorado guard Isaiah Johnson, Duke's addition of Belmont big man Drew Scharnowski to a bench role, St. John's landing Baylor's Tounde Yessoufou, Illinois adding Providence guard Stefan Vaaks, and Kentucky's signing of Iowa State's Milan Momcilovic, who CBS says changed the tenor of Kentucky's offseason. [S11]

What is unresolved

There is no official preseason poll in any source captured for this piece. What exists are outlets' offseason lists, which are opinion. The most recent we retained is CBS Sports' Top 25 And 1, Version 26, published Sept. 1: Florida first, then Duke, Illinois, UConn and Texas, with Michigan moved down to No. 16 after the McCoy injury. That is one outlet's ordering, not a result, and it will move again before Nov. 1. [S12]

Michigan also carries an eligibility question. CBS reports that guard Roddy Gayle Jr., a key reserve the past two seasons, filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to play in 2026-27, and CBS's view is that he would almost certainly start if cleared. [S13]

BetMetrics' view: everything above is calendar and personnel, not forecast. We expect the Rome opener and the Las Vegas week to be the first real evidence on rosters that turned over heavily, and we will not have a model view on any of these teams until games are played. [S1]