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Autumn Johnson | February 15, 2022

2022 NCAA women's basketball tournament bracket predictions, less than a month away from selections

2022 March Madness women's bracket predictions, as of Feb. 15

We are less than a month away from Selection Sunday! 

Women's college basketball teams across the country are finishing up their final stretch of conference play, which means I'm going to start ramping up my bracket predictions to a weekly basis. 

I predicted my fourth field of 68, which includes my automatic qualifiers for each conference, and then filled in the rest with my at-large bids. I took into consideration what we've seen so far, the DI women's basketball selection committee's second Top 16 reveal and major upsets that happened shortly afterwards.

Here's my bracket in table format:

Autumn Johnson's fourth 2022 NCAA women's basketball tournament bracket prediction

SEED GREENSBORO Spokane Bridgeport Wichita
1 South Carolina Stanford  NC State  Louisville 
16 Fairleigh Dickinson/ Norfolk St.  Jackson State SE Louisiana  Maine 
         
8 DePaul  Ole Miss  UCF  Kansas State
9 Arkansas Duke Utah  South Florida
         
5 BYU  Ohio State  Florida  Georgia Tech 
12 Toledo IUPUI  South Dakota  Missouri State
         
4 Notre Dame  Maryland  Texas  Oklahoma 
13 Rhode Island Drexel Stephen F. Austin  Belmont
         
6 Georgia  Oregon  North Carolina Iowa 
11 Oregon State/ Boston College  Creighton  Marquette Mississippi State
         
3 Michigan  Tennessee UConn LSU 
14 UNLV  Charlotte Troy  Long Beach State
         
7 Kansas  Virginia Tech Nebraska  FGCU 
10 Princeton  Colorado  Missouri  Gonzaga
         
2 Baylor  Virginia Tech  Indiana  Arizona
15 Fairfield Mercer  Holy Cross  Montana State

FIELD OF 68: Expansion of 2022 DI women’s basketball tournament to 68 teams approved

1 seeds remain the same, but upsets caused movement

South Carolina, now 10-0 against ranked opponents, keeps the Gamecocks on the throne as my No. 1 overall seed in my fourth bracket prediction of the 2021-22 season. Stanford, NC State and Louisville also locks in its spot on my one line, staying atop of the pack. But a few upsets around the league caused some movement in my latest bracket. 

Since the DI women's selection committee announced its second Top 16 reveal, multiple teams suffered some tough losses against conference foes. Arizona split its series in one weekend with in-state rival Arizona State (who's featured in my First Four In), Oklahoma fell to Texas, Notre Dame dropped a game to Louisville, and Oregon was defeated by in-state rival Oregon State. 

The biggest shift in my predictions is Michigan moving down to a three seed due to back-to-back upsets. The Wolverines have a head-to-head win over Baylor in December, but the Bears are have been blazing as of late as winners of nine of their last 10 games and are sitting sixth in NET rankings, as of Feb. 13. Meanwhile, Michigan is 15th in latest NET and has dropped two straight to unranked conference opponents - Michigan State and Northwestern, which put the Wildcats back in the tournament conversation as a contender on the rise. 

Last four in 

  1. Oregon State vs Marquette 
  2. Boston College vs Arizona State 

First four out 

  1. `Villanova 
  2. Washington State
  3. Liberty 
  4. Texas A&M 

In case you missed it, here is a link to my second bracket of this season.

The automatic qualifiers

Here are my 32 AQs, based off of who I think will lock in spots by everlasting foes in each respective conference tournament. 

Conference Automatic qualifier
America East Maine
American Athletic UCF
Atlantic 10 Rhode Island
ACC NC State
ASUN Florida Gulf Coast
Big 12 Iowa State
Big East UConn
Big Sky Montana State
Big South Campbell
Big Ten Michigan
Big West Long Beach State
Colonial Athletic Association Drexel
Conference USA Charlotte
Horizon  IUPUI
Ivy Princeton
MAAC Fairfield
MAC Toledo
MEAC Norfolk State
Missouri Valley Missouri State
Mountain West UNLV
Northeast Fairleigh Dickinson
Ohio Valley Belmont 
Pac-12 Stanford
Patriot Holy Cross
SEC South Carolina
Southern Mercer 
Southland SE Louisiana
SWAC Jackson State
Summit League South Dakota 
Sun Belt  Troy
West Coast  BYU
Western Athletic Conference Stephen F. Austin

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