2022 Women’s March Madness Odds: South Carolina Betting Favorites To Win Second Title

Dawn Staley, Zia Cooke, and South Carolina are favorites to win the women’s NCAA Tournament, per early March Madness odds (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

Selection Sunday marked the start of a new era for women’s college basketball, with the women’s March Madness field including 68 teams for the first time. The women’s NCAA Tournament gets underway Wednesday, so let’s take a look at early odds to cut down the nets in Minneapolis on April 3.

The beauty of March Madness is how unpredictable the tournament can be with unlikely teams emerging each year, but historically the top seeds have fared well in the women’s tournament and there are some clear favorites on oddsboards around the betting market.

FanDuel and PointsBet both list South Carolina as the favorites to win it all.  With a 29-2 overall record, Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks head into the tournament as the No. 1 overall seed, despite falling to Kentucky in the SEC Championship. Staley led South Carolina to the NCAA championship in 2017, and FanDuel has the program priced at a skinny +185 to claim the title for the second time. 

PointsBet has Stanford listed as the second favorite at +425. The No. 1 seed in the Spokane region, the Cardinal are looking to extend their 20-game win streak on their way to winning back-to-back NCAA titles. 

After a terrific season as a conference, the ACC has eight teams in the Big Dance, including Louisville and NC State. who both claimed No. 1 seeds. North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech are all capable of making deep runs, while Miami could be a sleeper pick if the Hurricanes can replicate some of their magic from the ACC tournament, where they advanced to the final but lost to the Wolfpack.  

Iowa is another team to watch, having found its rhythm toward the end of the season. The Hawkeyes won the Big Ten Tournament Championship as well as the regular season title, earning a No. 2 seed. They have one of the best players in the country in Caitlin Clark, who’s leading the nation with 27.4 points and 7.9 assists per game.

There’s also the women’s basketball powerhouse in UConn, which is getting plenty of respect from the betting market (the +350 second favorite at FanDuel and +450 third choice at PointsBet). The Huskies went 25-5 on the season with three blowout wins in the Big East Tournament to claim the title. They got a big boost when star forward Paige Bueckers returned after missing 19 games due to injury. 

Here are odds for all 68 teams in the tournament.