Apr. 29—The NCAA tournament has not officially been expanded, but reports late Tuesday afternoon made it clear it's only a matter of when, not if, it moves from 68 to 76 teams. ESPN's Pete Thamel was first to report the closeness of approval for expansion Tuesday, which confirmed an early April report from Yahoo! Sports' Ross Dellenger about the expected move to a 76-team event.

The next steps, per Thamel's report, include the NCAA finalizing contracts with its media partners for the tournament and then subsequent approval from the necessary NCAA committees to expand the field. A move pushed by the power conferences to generate more at-large bids for their leagues.

Eight additional at-large bids to get to 76 teams would see what's now known as the First Four — eight teams playing four games in Dayton, Ohio — growing to reach 24 teams playing in 12 games across two sites. Dayton is expected to remain a host, while a second westward site would be utilized.

Count Brad Underwood as a supporter of an expanded NCAA tournament. Moving from 68 to 76 teams for the premier postseason event in college basketball, in fact, isn't growing the game enough in the Illinois coach's opinion.

"I would love to see all sorts of different things with expansion," Underwood said in early March. "Not necessarily just teams, but what the format looks like and extending the season. I'm a big proponent, obviously, of more games and expanding the season.

"We don't play enough games. We're going to have 110 practices, and we don't need that many. Let's go play games. We have an incredible product in the NCAA tournament and March Madness. It obviously runs into April, so why not a little longer?"