NCAA adds metrics to Team Sheets; Nashville in the running for 2031 Final Four

With all of the changes happening in college sports, the NCAA couldn’t take the summer off completely. Today, the organization announced some changes to the NCAA Tournament selection process and a few upcoming events.

Let’s start with some of the fallout from conference realignment. Now that the Pac-12 has been dissolved, there will be 31 automatic qualifiers for the NCAA Tournament instead of 32, bringing the number of at-large bids to 37. Two metrics have also been added to the team sheets the Selection Committee uses when evaluating teams: the Torvik and “Wins Against the Bubble” (WAB) rankings.

“The committee has always valued different data points and metrics to assist with their evaluation process, and these two metrics have increasingly been referenced by members in recent years,” Gavitt said. “Adding them to the team sheet ensures that all 12 members easily have access to this data. The Torvik rankings, along with BPI and KenPom, gives the committee three predictive ratings, while the WAB, Strength of Record and KPI gives them three results-based metrics, all of which, in addition to the NET, will be beneficial to the team evaluation process.”

Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans in running for 2031 Final Four

There’s also some scheduling news. Indianapolis was named the host site for the 2026 Men’s Final Four back in 2018. Today, the NCAA announced that the 2026 Divisions II and III men’s basketball championship games, as well as the semifinals and finals of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), will also take place in Indy on the same weekend as the Final Four, making for an NCAA mega-event. Book your table at St. Elmo’s now.

Final Four sites are already scheduled through 2030. A new city has entered the running for the 2031 event. Nashville joins Atlanta and New Orleans as cities under consideration for the 2031 Final Four. The new Nissan Stadium, which will be enclosed, is expected to be complete in 2027, paving the way for the Music City to host big events like the Final Four, Super Bowl, and WrestleMania. Since Nissan Stadium is only a few miles from my house, I’m a big fan of this possibility.

Here is a complete list of future Final Four sites and a video from Andy Katz summing up today’s news.

Future Final Four Sites

Year	Dates	City	Venue	Host(s)
2025	April 5 & 7	San Antonio	Alamodome	U of Texas at San Antonio, University of Incarnate Word
2026	April 4 & 6	Indianapolis	Lucas Oil Stadium	Horizon League, IUPUI
2027	April 3 & 5	Detroit	Ford Field	Michigan State University
2028	April 1 & 3	Las Vegas	Allegiant Stadium	UNLV
2029	March 31 & April 2	Indianapolis	Lucas Oil Stadium	Horizon League, IUPUI
2030	April 6 & 8	North Texas	AT&T Stadium	Big 12 Conference

🏀 37 at-large bids
🏀 New metrics for Team Sheets
🏀 2026 Men’s Final Four update
🏀 2031 Men’s Final Four potential locations@TheAndyKatz reacts to exciting college hoops news 🔥 pic.twitter.com/J9xtIGEr6b

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) July 11, 2024