Top seeds, several upset winners move to Elite Ate in IndyStar's Pizza Bracket Challenge

Rory Appleton, Indianapolis Star
·2 min read

The Elite Ate in IndyStar's Pizza Bracket Challenge is now set, as two dark horses join six early favorites to vie for the area's best pie.

All four No. 1 seeds — Bazbeaux, King Dough, I Tre Mori and Futuro — comfortably advanced through the Saucy 16 round.

We, the pizza bracketologists of IndyStar, underestimated No. 7 Greek's Pizzeria in putting this tournament together. The lowest seed left in the tournament beat No. 3 Some Guys Pizza by 800 votes, or about 13 percentage points.

Vote now for Indy's best pizza: The Elite Ate are set.

No. 6 Ale Emporium is no slouch, either, having bested No. 2 Napolese by about 400 votes, roughly seven percentage points.

Although I Tre Mori beat No. 4 Roselli's Pizza, a Chicago-style pizza specialist, by an 11-point margin, it may struggle against Greek's dominance.

Indy's thin crust pizza coming out on top

Thin crust pizza, the one true style in my eyes, has dominated the bracket. Indianapolis, Midwestern culinary crossroads that it is with Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis-style crust options available, is apparently a thin-crust, Neapolitan-inspired pizza city.

Ale Emporium may struggle against Futuro, which has been dominant in the early rounds.

My recommendation:Does this Fishers restaurant have the best Indianapolis-area pizza?

The other two matches will be top-seed slugfests, with Brozinni Pizzeria taking on King Dough and Jockamo Upper Crust versus Bazbeaux.

Bazbeaux annihilated No. 5 Giorgio's Pizza, 4,906 votes to just 857, in the round of 16. Jockamo was only slightly less impressive, beating No. 3 Diavola 3,866 votes to 1,565. One of Jockamo's co-founders, Mick McGrath, worked at Bazbeaux for 16 years before branching out.

Whoever makes it out of this round is my favorite to win the whole thing. Voting unlocks Monday morning and will run through Thursday evening.

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Rory Appleton is the pop culture reporter and columnist at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 and rappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis pizza: Eight restaurants left in IndyStar bracket