2015–16 NCAA Division I men's basketball season
Preseason AP No. 1	North Carolina Tar Heels
Regular season	November 13, 2015 – March 13, 2016
NCAA Tournament	2016
Tournament dates	March 15 – April 4, 2016
National Championship	NRG Stadium Houston, Texas
NCAA Champions	Villanova Wildcats
Other champions	George Washington Colonials (NIT), Old Dominion Monarchs (Vegas 16), Nevada Wolf Pack (CBI), Columbia Lions (CIT)
Player of the Year (Naismith,Wooden)	Buddy Hield,Oklahoma Sooners
←2014–15 2016–17 →

The2015–16 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 13. The first early-season tournaments to begin were thePuerto Rico Tip-Off and theCharleston Classic. The season ended with the2016 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, whoseFinal Four took place atNRG Stadium inHouston, Texas, on April 2, 2016, with the national championship game following on April 4. Practices officially began on October 2, 2015.

The following rule changes were proposed by the NCAA Men's Rules Committee for the 2015–16 season,^[1][2] and officially approved by the NCAA Men's Playing Rules Oversight Panel:^[3]

• Reducing the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds (same as the women's game).
• Providing offensive players the same verticality protections as defensive players.
• Extending the restricted-area arc from 3 feet to 4 feet from the basket.
• Reducing the number of team timeouts from 5 to 4, with a limit of no more than 3 timeouts in the second half.
• Ending the practice of coaches calling timeouts from the bench in live-ball situations.
• Tightening the 10-second backcourt rule, under which the offensive team has 10 seconds to advance the ball from the backcourt to the frontcourt. The following situations, all of which resulted in a reset of the 10-second count under previous rules, no longer reset the count:
  • The defense deflects the ball out of bounds.
  • A held ball situation in the offensive backcourt in which the possession arrow favors the offense.
  • A technical foul against the offensive team during possession in its own backcourt.
• Eliminating the five-second "closely-guarded" rule while the ball is being dribbled.
• Allowing for technical fouls to be called on players who are determined to havefaked a foul while reviewing for a flagrant foul.
• Allow video replay of shot-clock violations throughout the game. Previously, this type of review was limited to only the final 2:00 of the game and in overtime.
• "Class B" technical fouls, such as hanging on the rim and delay of game, now result in one free throw by the non-violating team instead of the previous two.
• Requiring that a timeout taken 30 seconds or less before a scheduled media timeout break (which are at 16:00, 12:00, 8:00, and 4:00 of each half) become the media timeout. This particular change had been made in NCAA women's basketball effective with the2013–14 season.
• Stricter enforcement of resumption of play after timeouts, and reducing from 20 seconds to 15 seconds the time allowed to replace a disqualified (fouled out) player. Teams will receive a delay-of-game warning after the first violation, and a Class B technical foul for each subsequent violation.
• Dunking will be allowed during team warmups and halftime.
• An experimental rule allowing players six personal fouls instead of five will be used in all national postseason tournaments except for the NCAA tournament.

• May 27 – The NCAA announced itsAcademic Progress Rate (APR) sanctions for the 2015–16 school year. A total of 21 programs in 9 sports were declared ineligible for postseason play due to failure to meet the required APR benchmark, including the following four Division I men's basketball teams:^[4]
  • Alcorn State
  • Florida A&M
  • Stetson
  • Central Arkansas
• June 29 –Wisconsin head coachBo Ryan announced he would retire at the end of the 2015–16 season.^[5]
• August 13 – Ryan backed away from his previously announced retirement plans, saying that he was open to staying on beyond this season and that he would make his decision in the coming months.^[6]
• September 29 – The NCAA announced penalties againstSMU following an investigation into a wide array of violations:^[7]
  • The Mustangs were banned from postseason play for 2015–16.
  • Head coachLarry Brown was suspended for nine games.
  • SMU lost nine men's basketball scholarships from 2016–17 through 2018–19. Since the team had only 11 scholarship players for 2015–16, two short of the NCAA limit of 13, the two unused scholarships counted toward the penalty.
  • The men's basketball program was hit with three years' probation.
• October 2 –Yahoo! Sports revealed that theUniversity of Louisville was investigating allegations made in a soon-to-be-published book whose author, a self-describedmadam, claimed that she had been paid thousands of dollars by formerLouisville graduate assistant and director of basketball operationsAndre McGee to provide women todance for and have sex with Cardinals players and recruits.^[8]
• November 10 – TheAssociated Press preseasonAll-American team was released.Gonzaga forwardKyle Wiltjer was the leading vote-getter (51 votes). Joining him on the team wereIowa State forwardGeorges Niang (46 votes),Providence guardKris Dunn (43),Oklahoma guardBuddy Hield (40) andLSU forwardBen Simmons (28).^[9]
• December 15 – Bo Ryan announced his retirement after a win againstTexas A&M–Corpus Christi, effective immediately, with associate head coachGreg Gard assuming the title of interim head coach.^[10]
• December 23 – The NCAA announced penalties againstHawaiʻi for significant violations of NCAA rules:^[11][12]
  • Former head coachGib Arnold, who had been fired shortly before the 2014–15 season, received a three-yearshow-cause penalty. An assistant involved in the violations received a two-year show-cause.
  • The Rainbow Warriors were banned from postseason play in 2016–17.
  • The team lost two scholarships in both 2016–17 and 2017–18; it had previously announced a reduction of one scholarship for each of those seasons.
• January 13
  • The NCAA Division I council approved the following changes to its rules regardingdeclaration for theNBA draft:^[13]
    • Declaration for the draft no longer results in automatic loss of college eligibility. As long as a player does not sign a contract with a professional team outside the NBA, or sign with an agent, he will retain college eligibility as long as he makes a timely withdrawal from the draft.
    • NCAA players now have until 10 days after the end of theNBA Draft Combine to withdraw from the draft. For 2016, the withdrawal date was May 25, about five weeks after the previous mid-April deadline.
    • NCAA players may participate in the draft combine, and are also allowed to attend one tryout per year with each NBA team without losing college eligibility.
    • NCAA players may now enter and withdraw from the draft multiple times without loss of eligibility. Previously, the NCAA treated a second declaration of draft eligibility as a permanent loss of college eligibility.
  • Missouri admitted to major NCAA violations dating to 2011. While the NCAA had yet to announce its findings, Missouri voluntarily imposed the following sanctions:^[14]
    • The Tigers would not participate in any postseason playthis season, including theSEC tournament.
    • All 23 of the Tigers' wins in the2013–14 season were vacated.
    • The Tigers lost one scholarship in each of the next two seasons, and restrict recruiting in 2016–17.
• February 6
  • Louisville self-imposed a 2016 postseason ban.
• March 10
  • TheIvy League announced that it would institute men's and women's conference tournaments effective with the 2016–17 season. The top four teams in the regular-season standings qualify for each tournament. While the tournament winners receive automatic bids to the NCAA men's and women's tournaments, the official conference champions continue to be determined solely by regular-season results. The inaugural editions were held March 11–12, 2017 at thePalestra inPhiladelphia.^[15]
• April 8 – The NCAA announced penalties againstSouthern Miss for a wide array of violations occurring during the tenure of former head coachDonnie Tyndall. The NCAA's findings indicated that mere weeks after Tyndall became head coach, he directed program staffers to complete fraudulent coursework so that several recruits would ostensibly be eligible to play. It was also found that Tyndall had arranged for cash payments to recruits, fabricated documents in an attempt to cover up the payments, and deleted emails relevant to the investigation.^[16]
  • Tyndall received a 10-year show-cause, and even after it expires in 2026, he will be suspended for 50% of his next full season as an NCAA coach. Three of his assistants receive 8-year, 7-year, and 6-year penalties. At the time, Tyndall planned to appeal his penalty.
  • The NCAA accepted the school's self-imposed two-year postseason ban, but placed the Golden Eagles on three years' probation. All wins in which ineligible players participated were vacated, and the Golden Eagles lost four scholarships over the next three seasons.

• During the season, the following players reached the 2000 career point milestone –Evansville guardD. J. Balentine,^[17]High Point forwardJohn Brown,^[18]Hofstra guardJuan'ya Green,^[19]Louisiana–Lafayette forwardShawn Long,^[20]Iowa State forwardGeorges Niang,^[21]Old Dominion guardTrey Freeman,^[22]Oklahoma guardBuddy Hield,^[23]Stony Brook forwardJameel Warney,^[24]Louisville guardDamion Lee,^[25]Fresno State guardMarvelle Harris,Army swingmanKyle Wilson.^[26] andIona guardA. J. English.^[27]
• November 26 –Michigan State head coachTom Izzo wins his 500th game.^[28]
• November 28 –Davidson head coachBob McKillop wins his 500th game.^[29]
• November 28 –BYU'sKyle Collinsworth records his seventh careertriple-double, giving him sole possession of the NCAA record.^[30]
• January 26 –Virginia beatsWake Forest on a 9–1 run in the final fifteen seconds, including abuzzer beater three-point bank shot from Darius Thompson, in a comeback highly noted for its statistical improbability.^[31][32][33]
• February 1 –Duke's streak of 167 appearances in theAP Poll ended as the 5th longest streak of all time.^[34]
• February 5 –Yale's Brandon Sherrod, who entered the Bulldogs' game againstColumbia one shy of the Division I record of 26 consecutive field goals made, makes his first five field goal attempts in Yale's 86–72 win to set a new record of 30.^[35]
• February 8 – The2015–16 Villanova Wildcats became theprogram's first team to reach number one in the AP Poll by climbing to the top of the2015–16 NCAA Division I men's basketball rankings.^[36][37]
• March 16 – In BYU's 97–79 victory overUAB in the first round of the NIT, Collinsworth posts his sixth triple-double of the season, tying his own single-season record from last season and extending his NCAA career record to 12.^[38]

After atumultuous four years in which over 80 Division I schools moved to new conferences—some more than once—only two schools joined new conferences as full members for 2015–16:

Another change in membership involved theWestern Athletic Conference (WAC). This did not involve a school moving to a new league, but rather a change in identity of a Division I school. During the summer of 2015, theUniversity of Texas–Pan American (UTPA) and theUniversity of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) merged to form the newUniversity of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The UTPA athletic program was inherited by UTRGV, which retained UTPA's WAC membership.

FollowingUAB's decision to dropfootball at the end of the2014 season, its future membership inConference USA (C-USA) beyond 2014–15 was initially uncertain, as league bylaws require all member schools to either sponsor FBS football or be committed to establishing an FBS program. Due to ongoing efforts by boosters and other supporters to raise funds to bring UAB football back, C-USA indicated that UAB would be allowed to remain in the league for the 2015–16 season, but not beyond that time unless football was reinstated.^[41] On June 1, 2015, UAB initially announced that the football program would be reinstated in 2016,^[42] later pushing back the return of football to 2017; this was sufficient to satisfy C-USA, which announced that it would keep UAB as a member.^[43]

The 2015–16 season was the last forCoastal Carolina in theBig South Conference. On September 1, 2015, the university and theSun Belt Conference jointly announced that theChanticleers would join the Sun Belt in July 2016, initially as a non-football member. Thefootball team will join the Sun Belt in 2017, the second year of its transition from FCS to FBS football.^[44]

• TheOmaha Mavericks left their home since 2012, the off-campusRalston Arena, for the new on-campusBaxter Arena. The Mavericks' first game in the new arena was on November 13 against theUC Santa Barbara Gauchos, with the Mavericks losing 60–59.^[45]
• TheOle Miss Rebels also opened a new arena, but unlike Omaha, the move was from one campus venue to another.Tad Smith Coliseum, home to the Rebels since 1966, was replaced byThe Pavilion at Ole Miss. The new arena, with a capacity of 9,500, opened on January 7, with the Rebels defeatingAlabama 74–66.^[46]

The top 25 from the AP and USA Today Coaches Polls.

Thirty-oneconferenceregular seasons concluded with asingle-elimination tournament. The teams in each conference that won their regular-season titles were given the number oneseed in their respective conference tournaments. Conference tournament winners received an automatic bid to the2016 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. For the final time, theIvy League was the onlyNCAA Division I conference that did not hold a conference tournament, instead sending its regular-season champion to the NCAA tournament.