INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA appointed Notre Dame Vice President and James E. Rohr Director of Athletics Pete Bevacqua to its NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Selection Committee on Thursday afternoon. He will join a 12-member committee tasked with selecting, seeding, and bracketing the first 76-team field. Bevacqua will ultimately serve a four-year term starting on July 1.
Bevacqua is just the second Notre Dame athletics director to serve on an NCAA Men’s Basketball committee, joining Gene Corrigan, who served from 1981-87. Bevaccqua will be outgoing Syracuse Athletics Director John Wildhack’s replacement as the Atlantic Coast Conference representative.
Important to note, Bevacqua already sits on the College Football Playoff Management Committee, which consists of 10 conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletics director.
Since the start of the CFP Management Committee in 2014, only eight members have ever served on both the CFP Management and Men’s Basketball Committees. However, only two people have ever been on both committees at the same time: Pete Bevacqua and Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill.
Furthermore, Bevacqua will be the only sitting athletics director to ever be on both.
Three other administrators were announced alongside Bevacqua on Thursday: Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter, Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Jeff Jackson and Northwestern athletics director Mark Jackson. The four new members will be joined by Irma Garcia, the director of athletics at Manhattan; Stu Jackson, the commissioner of the West Coast Conference; Arthur Johnson, the director of athletics at Temple; Zack Lassiter, the director of athletics at Abilene Christian; Martin Newton, the director of athletics at Samford; Lee Reed, the director of athletics at Georgetown; Chad Weiberg, the director of athletics at Oklahoma State; and Tom Wistrcill, the commissioner of the Big Sky Conference. Newton will chair the committee for the 2026-27 season.
Bevacqua, who is a 1993 graduate of Notre Dame, returned to campus in July 2023 as a special assistant to the president before being named director of athletics in March 2024. Before that, Bevacqua served as chair of NBC Sports, leading to its unprecedented collection of assets and platforms, and was the network’s chief steward of exclusive broadcast rights agreement with Notre Dame football.
He previously served as chief executive officer of the PGA of America, global head of golf at Creative Artists Agency, chief business officer for the United States Golf Association and first managing director of the U.S. Open Championship. Bevacqua is also the eighth person to serve on the committee and the College Football Playoff management team.
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