Earlier this week, the NCAA’s women’s selection committee released its bracket for the 2022 edition of March Madness. Things were a little different this year. After video from the 2021 tournament exposed the inequity between the men’s and women’s tournaments, the NCAA has made an effort to create more parity between the events.
So this year, if you tune into the women’s tournament, you’ll notice: four additional teams (from 64 to 68), widespread use of the “March Madness” moniker, identical lounges and swag for men’s and women’s players and more promotion across the board (including cross promotion with the men’s tournament). The league still has a long way to go — as a basketball fan, it feels like these changes are the lowest of the low-hanging fruit — but, I suppose, it’s a start.
Here at Autostraddle, we’re keeping a good thing going by kicking off another edition of March Madness and like last year, we’re starting our annual tradition with you, our A+ readers.
Once again, you are the selection committee for this year’s bracket. Below you’ll find candidates in the four regions of this year’s tournament: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Baby Gays, Grown and — a special region for this year — Gen Q. For the purposes of this tournament, the candidates have been limited to couples who have been showcased in new episodes since March 2021. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list but hopefully we’ve included all your faves. Also, in this context, “Baby Gays” refers to characters that are college aged or younger.
The challenge for you is to rank this year’s couples. Want to revel in everything Gigi? Drag her relationships with Bette and Dani to the top of the Generation Q region. Did you share the internet’s disdain for Miranda and Che? Drop them to the bottom of the Grown region. Make whatever choices for whatever reason seems right to you. There’s no right or wrong answer. You have 48 hours to make your selections.
How many couples will make the final cut? What’s the theme for this year’s competition? Well, I’m going to keep that to myself so you can have some surprises when the bracket officially drops this Friday.
