Bracket Breakdown: Hot Takes Edition

Your guide to the best upsets and sleepers in the 2022 bracket

Mar 16, 2022

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Last year, we debuted a full menu of hot wings takes for the 2021 tournament, complete with several flavors to choose from.

The hot wings are back for year two with more tournament takes to satiate all your desires for spice! Unless, that is, you hate spice altogether. If you’re new here, we aren’t interested in bland, so as a rule, none of these takes will line up with the chalk bracket.

Alright, let’s get to it.

Mild

These takes are for those who want some flavor but have wimpy taste buds. Only slightly less likely than the seedline favorites, these predictions still have a very realistic chance of coming to fruition.

No. 2 UConn will make the Final Four

Okay, picking UConn to do something it’s done 13 straight times in a “hot takes” piece is almost cheating. That’s why it’s in the mild section. As a No. 2 seed, the Huskies making the Final Four technically wouldn’t be chalk, so we're going with it.

Getting to stay in their home state for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight is a huge boost for the Huskies to the detriment of NC State. But that’s not the only reason we're rolling with them. UConn has been hit as hard as anyone this season in terms of players missing time, and that’s probably still true even if you don’t count the fact that they lost last year’s national player of the year for over two months.

Geno Auriemma has navigated a lineup in constant flux this season and has only recently had his full rotation available. Competition level aside, it’s no fluke that UConn has won its last eight games by an average of over 40 points after some shaky play in the middle of the season.

NC State would probably have had a much easier time beating UConn in January at home, but for the Wolfpack, this one will be a case of wrong place, wrong time.

No. 10 Arkansas will beat No. 7 Utah

This is another one that may not be an upset depending on who you ask, but we're asking the committee and no one else. Despite the mild spice level on the pick, the on-court product should be as flavorful as it gets.

Neither Utah nor Arkansas is quite as interested in defending as they are at putting the ball in the hoop, and both love to do so from deep as well. If you’re looking for some buckets, tune into this one on Friday.

As for the pick, we're going with the team that does more things well. With the volume of threes this game should see, it may come down to whose shots go in, but if you’re looking for a separator, Arkansas is much better at protecting the ball and the paint.

Medium

Order from this section for picks that have a little extra kick. These takes don’t sting, but they provide enough heat to satisfy your cravings for boldness — or to earn you bragging rights in your office pool.

A team from the First Four will make the second round

In order to avoid this being a complete cop-out, let's pick DePaul as the team most likely to do it. But the general take here is that one of the teams playing tonight or tomorrow is going to extend its stay by a couple more days.

We have over a decade of precedent on the men’s side, and we’ve seen how the First Four can be a launching pad in that tournament. No. 11 VCU kicked things off with a run to the Final Four in 2011, the inaugural year of the men’s First Four. UCLA did the same just last year.

While the parity in the women’s game isn’t the same as it is in the men’s (yet), it’s growing every year. And it’s at the point where one of these teams can definitely pull off another win. The added benefit of getting a head start on shaking off the tournament nerves and adjusting to the shooting backdrops of the new venue can’t hurt either.

No. 6 BYU will make the Sweet Sixteen

The Cougars will first have to get past Maddy Siegrist and No. 11 Villanova, which will be no small task. If they do, however, they’ll likely have No. 3 Michigan awaiting them in the second round.

Not that the AP Poll means a whole lot anymore, but it’s worth noting that those teams are only eight spots apart in it. With the tournament back to its pre-COVID format, the Wolverines will get the advantage of playing in Ann Arbor, so they should be favored. But this is a loaded Cougars squad that shares the ball and can beat you at several positions.

BYU will have the upper hand in offensive depth in this matchup, and if head coach Jeff Judkins opts to use Sara Hamson in a bigger role off the bench, she could make it tough on Naz Hillmon to score inside.

Hot

Now we’re getting spicy. No, not 16-over-1 spicy, but spicy enough to get your nose running. True connoisseurs of heat will find their comfort zone here.

No. 12 FGCU will beat No. 5 Virginia Tech

FGCU may be the most underseeded team of the tournament, which is just as much of a punishment to Virginia Tech as it is to the Eagles. The Hokies boast the ACC Player of the Year in Elizabeth Kitley, but in terms of pure next-level talent this may be the rare 5 vs. 12 matchup where the No. 12 seed has the best player on the floor.

Our reigning Becky Hammon award winner and 2022 finalist Kierstan Bell has shown up in the first round of several WNBA mock drafts, including our own by Gabe Ibrahim, and she will be a matchup problem for the Hokies. As the de facto “five” on a team that gives practically all of their minutes to sub-six-footers, Bell is much more of a perimeter player and should be able to take Kitley away from the paint.

FGCU also plays a style that’s well suited to pull an upset regardless of the matchup. Pulling as many threes as they do increases variance, and they rarely turn it over. The latter point will come into play even more in a game against a Virginia Tech team that owns the second-lowest steal rate in the country.

Expect FGCU to get a shot off almost every time down the court. As long as the well doesn’t run dry in the makes department, they have a real chance in this one.

No. 12 UMass will beat No. 5 Notre Dame

UMass has been a Her Hoop Stats darling all season long–they currently rank 32nd in our ratings, just two spots below Notre Dame. While it’s possible that our model is overrating them, the gap between these teams is almost certainly smaller than the seed lines suggest.

The Minutewomen are a terrific rebounding team, led by a player you need to watch in Sam Breen. And their defense matches up well with the Fighting Irish–it’s built to prevent ball handlers like Olivia Miles from getting downhill and force them into jumpers instead. This one may depend on if Miles can knock down her threes.

On the other end, it’s always tough to score on Maya Dodson at the rim, but Notre Dame doesn’t exactly mind giving up threes either. If we see a lot of threes on both sides in this game, that variance will benefit the underdogs.

Fire

Only the bravest of souls dare venture into this section. These takes, while unlikely, have the potential to completely shake up the bracket. If you enjoy the physical pain of pure heat, you’ve come to the right place. If not, then you better have some milk ready.

No. 5 Oregon will make the Elite Eight

We took the Ducks last year in this piece, and it paid dividends when they made the Sweet Sixteen. Let's do it again. Kelly Graves is no stranger to exceeding expectations in March–he’s made the Elite Eight as a double-digit seed with two different programs.

There’s no question about the talent on the Oregon roster. There are six top-40 recruits in the rotation, and the Ducks were ranked in the preseason AP top 10 for a reason. The question all season has been health and chemistry.

Oregon will get a challenging No. 12 seed in the first round (remember when Belmont pulled the 12-5 upset last year with basically this same group of players?). And Oregon’s second-round game would presumably come against Tennessee in the Vols’ building. But if Jordan Horston isn’t back by then, Oregon should be the best team in this pod, which means an Elite Eight run may really only involve one upset. Taking down Louisville won’t be easy, but the Ducks probably have a better chance at that than what the public is giving them, as only 7% of CBS Sports brackets have them in the Elite Eight.

No. 13 IUPUI will beat No. 4 Oklahoma

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better win on a No. 13 seed’s resume in any season than the win IUPUI got at Iowa earlier this year. That came after opening the season by taking Michigan to overtime in Ann Arbor.

This isn’t a team that is going to be phased by the road atmosphere at Oklahoma, and the Sooners aren’t as strong as your typical No. 4 seed. Jennie Baranczyk has done a magnificent job turning them around in just one season; the team’s 24 wins this year matched their mark from the previous two years combined.

However, our ratings still have Oklahoma ranked 38th–they’ve benefitted from some close wins, including three over Texas and Baylor by a combined nine points. Those wins look great on the resume, but if a few bounces go a different way this season this could easily be a No. 8 seed.

The Jaguars also have a dominant low-post scorer in Macee Williams, who ranks in the top 3% of Division I in postup efficiency (per Synergy). That’s the exact type of player Oklahoma has struggled to defend all year. The Sooners rank in the bottom 5% of the nation in postup efficiency on defense, and who can forget the game when they gave up an NCAA record 61 to Ayoka Lee?

Bonus dangerously irresponsible take

The hottest pepper in the world is the Carolina Reaper, which, according to pepperhead.com, is 200 times hotter than a jalapeño. If you’re foolish enough to make it this far, the Carolina Reaper of takes awaits you.

No. 14 Jackson State will beat No. 3 LSU

No, a No. 14 seed has never beaten a No. 3 seed. Then again, everything that’s ever happened was, at one point, something that had never happened.

If you haven't seen Jackson State play over the last few years, get ready for a treat. This team hasn’t lost since December, and they came within a couple possessions of knocking off Miami and Arkansas on the road.

Tomekia Reed’s squad is fourth in the nation in scoring at just under 80 a game, and they can crash the glass with the best of them. It’s also one of just two teams shooting better than 44% from the field and holding opponents under 35%.

The stars will be shining as one of the most underrated dynamic duos in the country gets to play on national TV. Point guard Dayzsha Rogan can score at all three levels and is a menace on defense, while Ameshya Williams-Holliday is putting up post numbers not even Aliyah Boston can match–19.4 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks per game.

No matter how this one shakes out, a Tigers team is moving on. If you like your wings coated in lava, take the Tigers from the SWAC.

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