A trio of congressmen have asked NCAA president Charlie Baker in a letter to provide more information about the association's plans to allow college athletes to bet on professional sports.

The NCAA announced Thursday that player availability reports will be used for the 2026 men's and women's basketball tournaments in March. The reports from teams must be submitted the night before games and again two hours before tipoff.

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions has approved Jacksonville State to hire former Tennessee head coach and Alabama staffer Jeremy Pruitt as an analyst, the program confirmed to AL.com in a statement.

Sports betting is legal and regulated in 38 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and an NCAA survey conducted in 2024 found that 21.5 percent of male college athletes reported betting (legally or illegally) on sports at least once in the previous 12 months. At the Division I level, the number was 12.6 percent.

Teams can always get hot and make a run in the NCAA tournament to turn a solid 24- or 25-win season into a miraculous finish that ends with a national title. In recent college basketball history, however, the bulk of the national champions were already flirting with that 30-win tally before they cut down the nets in the final game.

The NCAA is delaying a rule change that will allow athletes and athletic department staff members to bet on professional sports.

NCAA betting safeguards expand with March Madness injury reports, as colleges push for stricter integrity measures and athlete protections.

The past seven NCAA tournament berths from the Big Sky have been claimed by Montana, Montana State and Eastern Washington. This season, the conference might have to make room for a trio of teams looking to snap some long NCAA tournament droughts: Portland State (last in 2009), Northern Colorado (2011) and Idaho (1990).