NCAA considering releasing 68-team bracket despite canceling tourney

The NCAA could still release a full 68-team bracket for the national tournament despite canceling the event due to the coronavirus pandemic, senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said Friday.

"We're hearing today there's interest from coaches and athletic directors from that," he told CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. "I wouldn't say we've shut down the idea completely, but there is - practically speaking, it's a bit challenging at this moment. ... There's pluses and minuses to any decision.

"If you put the field together, you could have teams, depending on that conference's policy, (that) would not be the most obvious choice as the (automatic qualifier). It's something we're going to continue to look at. This has been so fast, so emotional, we'll continue to think on it a little bit."

The NCAA canceled both the men's and women's 2020 national basketball tournaments Thursday, making this the first year since the first men's tournament in 1939 that neither will be played. The move was made as several conferences shut down their respective tournaments, leaving a number of automatic qualifier berths in the air.

Howewer, Gavitt said an existing rule obligates every conference to determine which school would be the automatic qualifier in case of situations such as these.

"Each conference is required to tell us how they would be given a conference AQ if the conference tournament was not completed," he said. "The conferences have to have that."

Before scrapping the entire national tournament, the NCAA did try to salvage the event with a condensed version. Gavitt told The Associated Press on Friday that he proposed a 16-team event that would have spanned just four days. That idea, however, was shut down due to growing safety concerns.