Women's NCAA Tournament Challenge early bracket trends and notes

We've spent weeks debating bubble teams, conference champions, and Bracketology, but now that the 2022 Women's NCAA Tournament field has been revealed, it's time to sign up and fill out your brackets.

Picking the right Final Four is a difficult task, especially with the depth of quality national championship contenders like UConn, Stanford, and South Carolina. Who are the most popular teams chosen as the public fills out their first brackets? Who are the trends underdogs and upsets so far?

Below are some early 2022 ESPN Tournament Challenge bracket trends as well as a look back at some selected 2021 NCAA Tournament results.

After 24 hours, 55.3% of brackets have a 1-seed winning it all South Carolina has established themselves as the clear front-runner, as they've been picked to win it all in 33.4% of brackets

The most popular non-1-seeds to cut down the nets:

No. 2-seed UConn: 12.6%

No. 2-seed Iowa: 5.5%

No. 2-seed Baylor: 3.3%

No. 2-seed Texas: 2.1%

No. 3-seed Michigan: 1.7%

Overall, 8-9 games are always tough, but at the moment, all 4 8-seeds hold the edge in pick percentage.

South Carolina (63.5%) and Stanford (60.6%) have distanced themselves from the field in terms of pick percentage to make the Final Four. No other team is picked to win their region even 44% of the time

Upset special?

Here are the most popular picks at each of the double digit seed lines to win their first round game:

No. 16-seed: Montana State (6.2%)

No. 15-seed: Hawai'i (7.7%)

No. 14-seed: Jackson State (9.8%)

No. 13-seed: Buffalo (12.6%)

No. 12-seed: Belmont (15.2%)

No. 11-seed: Villanova (30.8%)

No. 10-seed: Arkansas (40.5%)

Whose program is most likely to win BOTH the men's and women's tournaments?

Here are the top 5 in terms of cumulative