Joe Women's Bracket 2022

As bad as it was, last year's debacle with the conditions in the San Antonio bubble may have ended up being a good thing in the long run.  Consider: this year, the women's tournament will also use the "March Madness" branding and has been expanded to 68 teams.  Same as the men.  I'm not saying that stuff doesn't happen anyway.  But what happened last year certainly pressed the issue.

The expansion to 68 teams is no small thing, either.  It's six extra at-large bids.  Which is obviously really good for the bubble teams.  Especially with the number of good teams that haven't gotten in over the past few years, there's really no downside to making room for six more of them in the tournament.

I have both First Four games feeding to 11-seeds, and the other two 11s are both at-larges.  So, those are the six extra teams. None of them would've been in the tournament last season.  And they all deserve to be in the field.

Meanwhile, at the top of the field, who's No. 1 overall may actually be more important than who gets the fourth 1-seed.  Here's why.  There's a regional in Greensboro and one in Bridgeport.  South Carolina and NC State both figure to be locks for 1-seeds.  So is Stanford, who'll obviously be put in Spokane.  For the sake of this discussion, who gets the fourth No. 1 between Baylor and Louisville doesn't matter, since they'll likely be the 1 and 2 seeds in Wichita in either order.

With NC State and South Carolina, however, who goes to Greensboro and who goes to Bridgeport is very important.  Because UConn's likely gonna be the No. 2 seed in Bridgeport.  Sure, it's been a "down" year for UConn with five losses.  But neither one of them wants anything to do with Huskies in what would essentially be a road game...against a team that's been to 13 consecutive Final Fours!

Of course, an easy way to solve that problem would be to not have UConn play in Bridgeport, but you know that's not gonna happen!  Not when they put the Regional in Bridgeport pretty regularly for the sole purpose of guarateeing the attendance figure that the UConn fans always produce.  And, especially after two years where they had no tournament, then limited attendance in a bubble, you can bet the NCAA will make sure the UConn fans get to see the Huskies in Bridgeport.

Whether that's fair is a discussion for another day, but it brings me back to my point about South Carolina and NC State.  They're both locks for 1-seeds.  Whoever the committee rates higher will have a much easier path to the Final Four, though.  Because not only will they have the easier travel to Greensboro, they, perhaps more importantly, won't have to deal with a potential Regional Final against UConn in Bridgeport.

In my opinion, that team should be South Carolina.  They have only two losses on the year, one of which came in the SEC Championship Game against Kentucky.  That was by two points.  Their only other loss was by one at Missouri.  So, they're three points away from entering the NCAA Tournament undefeated, as well as the consensus No. 1.  NC State is great.  But South Carolina is just a little bit better.  They get the higher overall seed.  They get the No. 1 overall seed, in fact.

That and who gets the fourth No. 1 between Baylor and Louisville are really the only pressing questions at the top of the bracket.  Things shouldn't be much different than the last Top 16 reveal.  Is it possible that someone like Oregon or Virginia Tech snuck into the Top 16 overall and will get first and second round home games?  Sure.  But I think it's more likely that the 16 home teams will be the exact same 16 home teams that the committee ranked a couple weeks ago.

Another interesting wrinkle involves the First Four.  Unlike the men's tournament where all of the First Four games are played in Dayton, the Women's First Four is played at the first round site that each winner will advance to.  Which should mean they don't need to finagle it to make sure they're sending them somewhere close enough or account for the schedule so that they get that off day in between. 

So, I'm curious to see not only who'll be in the inaugural Women's First Four, but how they set it up.  Will they go straight along the S-curve, giving 1 and 2 the two surviving 16 seeds and having the two at-large winners fill the "last" spot on the 11 or 12 line?  Or will they still take travel into account and have say Mount St. Mary's/Longwood at NC State since it's closer to both schools?

OK, I've gone on long enough.  Here, without further ado, is the 2022 Joe Women's Bracket, headlined by No. 1 overall seed South Carolina...

GREENSBORO REGION
16-Mount St. Mary's/SE Louisiana at 1-South Carolina (1), 8-Georgia Tech vs. 9-Kansas
13-UNLV at 4-Oklahoma, 5-Oregon vs. 12-Massachusetts
14-Fairfield at 3-LSU, 6-Notre Dame vs. 11-Washington State

15-Jackson State at 2-Iowa, 7-Central Florida vs. 10-Villanova

WICHITA REGION
16-Mercer at 1-Baylor (4), 8-Colorado vs. 9-Arkansas

13-IUPUI at 4-Maryland, 5-North Carolina vs. 12-Drexel
14-Charlotte at 3-Tennessee, 6-BYU vs. 11-Dayton/Boston College
15-American at 2-Louisville, 7-Nebraska vs. 10-Kansas State

SPOKANE REGION
16-Montana State/Longwood at 1-Stanford (2), 8-Florida vs. 9-Miami
13-Northern Iowa at 4-Indiana, 5-Virginia Tech vs. 12-Belmont
14-Hawaii at 3-Michigan, 6-Kentucky vs. 11-Creighton
15-UT Arlington at 2-Texas, 7-Florida Gulf Coast vs. 10-Gonzaga

BRIDGEPORT REGION
16-Howard at 1-NC State (3), 8-South Florida vs. 9-Utah
13-Stephen F. Austin at 4-Arizona, 5-Mississippi vs. 12-South Dakota
14-Buffalo at 3-Iowa State, 6-Ohio State vs. 11-Missouri State/New Mexico
15-Albany at 2-Connecticut, 7-Georgia vs. 10-Princeton