Early last year, I started plotting out a course for March Madness. Developing a theme, finding couples, reaching out to the fandom. And then the pandemic took hold and the ground shifted beneath us. All I wanted to do was read about COVID and do whatever we could to protect our families and communities. I had to learn how to transition to working from home and how to guide my nephews through virtual learning. All of a sudden, debating the finer points of why I’d ranked one couple higher than the next and which couple deserved to move to the next round, didn’t seem like the best use of time.
But it’s been a year… and dammit… after the year we’ve had, we deserve the joy of debating which lesbian couple is better and who should’ve been seeded where. So we’re bringing back March Madness this year… and we’re exploring new ways to make the experience more fun and interactive for our readers.
That experience starts now.
Welcome, A+ readers, to the 2021 March Madness Selection Committee.
“What’s a selection committee?” you ask.
Good question. Allow me to put my basketball nerdery hat on.
Yesterday, a group of ten athletics administrators arrive in San Antonio, Texas to pick the 64 teams that’ll participate in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Part of that work’s been done for them — 32 teams are automatic qualifiers for the tournament by virtue of having won their conference tournament — but the selection committee picks the other 32 using a series of convoluted criteria. Then, after the committee’s decided on their 64 teams, they rank them all, one through 64, and seed them in four regions. This year, those seedings won’t matter as much because the top women’s seeds will not host opening round games on their campuses, but still, seeding is the hardest part of the selection committee’s work.
This year, for Autostraddle’s March Madness, you’ll be the selection committee.
Below you’ll find candidates in the four regions of this year’s tournament: Classic, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Baby Gay and Grown. For the purposes of this tournament, classic is any show that ended its run on or before 2016 and “Baby Gay” is limited to couples featuring high school or college-aged characters.
Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to rank them. Be the Autostraddle March Madness selection committee. Drag and drop your selections as you see fit.
Did Spencer Carlin help you come out as a Baby Gay yourself? Pull South of Nowhere‘s Spashley up to the top of the list. Are you fervent in your belief that season six of The L Word never really happened? Drag Shane and Jenny way, way down the list. Make whatever choices for whatever reason seems right to you. There are, of course, more options than slots in the bracket, so not everyone will make the final cut.
The rankings system will close at 9AM (EST) on Monday morning and you can come back to Autostraddle later in the day for unveiling of the full bracket.
