Update: Monday March 21st: Vote now in the Round of 32.
Selection Sunday for the actual March Madness NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament happened last weekend, and you’ve probably watched a few games here and there throughout the past week. In all likelihood, you’re watching the Illinois-Houston game right now. While you’ve been doing that, perhaps you’ve wondered “Hey, is Smile Politely doing a bracket again this year?” Well, you are in luck, because with your help, we’ve put together our tournament this year: a showdown of pizza joints. (Check out 2019‘s and 2020‘s while youre at it.)
How was this done? With your help (we asked readers across our social media channels), combined with polling our group of editors, and some other random folks who know pizza in this here community, we’ve put together a bracket of 32 joints in and around C-U that serve up pizza pies for the ultimate carb competition. We’re throwing variation out the window and leveling the playing field for a tourney, meaning, if a restaurant, bar, or establishment serves a pizza on their regular menu, they’re eligible. We collated what we learned from our readership and combined that with some lists, and landed here with our Pizza Tournament 2022.
This afternoon, we’re going to be revealing each pizza joint locally that’s part of the tournament (yes, there will be a few chains in there, but you said as much and we agreed on a few), showcasing what region and ranking they were given. We’ll be revealing the tournament on Twitter all afternoon today post-Illinois/Houston game sometime, so follow us there if you want to get the play by play. We’ll be updating this article as time goes on as well, and our tournament will kick off tomorrow, Monday, March 21st.
Final Update 6:45 p.m. Here is the complete field of 32. Remember, check back tomorrow and on our social channels for voting in this year’s tournament (click here to view a horizontally-oriented version of the bracket):
Update 4:00 p.m.: Region One has been announced:
Update 5:00 p.m.: Region Two has been announced:
Update 6:00 p.m.: Region Three has been announced:
Update 6:45 p.m. Region 4 has been revealed, and with that, head back up to the top of the article to check out the complete field of 32.
Top image by Manolo’s Pizza.