It appears as though the NCAA is contemplating a major change to the structural format in which men’s college basketball games are played in the future.
According to a post on the NCAA’s official website discussing rule changes for the upcoming season, it was revealed that the NCAA is looking into the idea of changing from a halves to quarters format in the men’s college basketball world.
It’s important to note that this change hasn’t been approved yet, but the post does reveal that the change has “positive momentum” going in the direction of a four-quarter game.
“In considering the decisions last month, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee had conversations about ways to continue this direction in the upcoming years, which includes positive momentum for moving the men’s game from halves to quarters,” the official NCAA post states. “The committee realizes there are hurdles to implementing the quarter format to the game, including the structuring of media timeouts to accommodate commercial inventory.”
The press release also states that the Men’s Basketball Rules Committee “recommended NCAA Division I conferences create a joint working group to provide feedback on the potential change from halves to quarters.”
This change would bring the sport of men’s college basketball to the same format as the NBA and women’s college basketball with the four 10-minute quarters format, rather than the longtime two 20-minute halves format that has been so accustomed in the men’s game.
Legion Hoops posted the news to X on Wednesday and has seen nearly one million impressions on the post in a short time with overwhelmingly negative feedback.
“This (is) the NCAA wanting more commercial breaks and unnecessary advertisements and you can’t convince me otherwise,” one user on X replied.
“I like college basketball as it is,” another user wrote. “Honestly more competitive than the NBA.”
“What’s wrong with college hoops currently?” one user questioned.
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According to the NCAA in a post from April, the 2025 men’s NCAA Tournament did record numbers. The tournament “averaged 9.4 million viewers per game through the round of 32, the best since 1993.” Additionally, the men’s Final Four semifinal games averaged 15.5 million viewers across a trio of networks, which is the highest mark since 2017 and a 21% increase from the previous tournament.
With the information of the potential change now out to the public, it’ll be interesting to see if online opinion sways this in one direction or another as NCAA and Division I leadership ponder the idea of moving to a four-quarter format. We’ll just have to wait and see if any more information comes out in the near future, but the “positive momentum” line does suggest that this could be something that the NCAA is taking seriously.
Check out the full NCAA rules press release from Tuesday here.
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