After an exciting week and a half of voting, March Gradness has officially come to a close. There were some heavy hitters in this year’s bracket, but only one book can rule them all. Before we announce the winner, let’s take a look at how our bracket predictions played out.
Those who have been following this competition over the years may recall that last year, our staff brackets went poorly, to say the least. Every one of us completely biffed it. This year didn’t go much better. Out of a maximum of 120 points, our winner was Associate Editor Preety Sidhu, who scored a total of 70. Last year’s winner didn’t even crest the halfway point, so at least we can say we’re improving!
From there, it only gets worse. Managing Editor Wynter K. Miller came in second with 66 and Senior Editor Katie Henken Robinson clocked in third place with 57. Our lowest score went to Executive Director Halimah Marcus, whose total came to a staggering 47, losing even to Commuter Editor Kelly Luce, who failed to fill out her bracket to completion. Halimah has retroactively claimed this poor performance was a “leadership strategy” to make the rest of the team “feel successful”…but we have our doubts.
We also asked for our readers to fill out brackets, and for the most part, these went about as well as ours did. It’s harder than it looks to predict these book competitions! Our winner was Lauren Hutton, a former intern here at EL, who beat all of us total of 77 points. Congratulations, Lauren!
Now, without further ado, the title of Best Campus Novel goes to (drumroll please)…Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou!
This campus novel won some very difficult battles along the way, beating out major contender The Idiot and predicted winner The Secret History. And it wasn’t even close! Disorientation didn’t just win, it destroyed the competition in the finals.
For those who have been following along, here’s how the full bracket played out:
Thanks to everyone who played! We can’t wait to do it again next year with yet another pun-based bracket.
