The Stony Brook Quiz Bowl team sits at a long table and waits for the first toss-up question. They listen to a moderator go through a list of clues, waiting for that moment where the answer pops into their minds.
A buzzer sounds.
The Stony Brook Quiz Bowl Team, or SBQBT, is an academic team that revolves around trivia and competes locally and regionally.
“Specifically, we go to Quiz Bowl tournaments throughout the area and hold practices where one guy reads out quiz bowl questions, while everyone else tries to answer them,” sophomore math major and SBQBT co-president Robert Pond said.
Quiz Bowl is a trivia competition that is similar to Jeopardy. However, the questions are considered harder, and the rounds are group events. Rounds are filled with toss-up questions that revolve around college course-related subjects. Due to the breadth of college courses, questions can be about almost anything, from science to pop culture and more. Moderators give clues until a team “buzzes in” and gives an answer. In between toss-up questions, moderators ask bonus questions comprised of three short questions.
Currently, the team is small and slowly growing. Junior Michael Bouklas, a junior earth science and education double major, enjoys weekly practices and says that most of the time the team practices trivia and jokes around.
“The best part about SBQBT is going to tournaments,” Bouklas said. “They last the whole day, but they’re really competitive and tons of fun.”
The team competes in the area and at other universities such as Yale, which requires them to leave campus between 6 and 7 a.m. At one competition, specifically written for newer teams, the SBQBT only lost two out of nine rounds.
The team most recently competed at Princeton University on Feb. 4.
Competitions include preliminary rounds where teams are randomly placed into brackets. Each team plays every team in their bracket. (The bracket has no bearing on the strength of the individual team.) After preliminary rounds are over, teams are put into playoff brackets based on how they performed earlier that day. The top two teams are announced and have a final Quiz Bowl round.
The SBQBT hopes to host a competition for Stony Brook students, other colleges or a high school tournament.
“I had started playing Quiz Bowl in high school my sophomore year and really got into it by my senior year,” sophomore health major Naib Mobassir said. “When I came to Stony Brook, I was disappointed to find it did not have a Quiz Bowl team, so I decided I had to do something about it.” Mobassir also serves as co-president of the team.
Mobassir met Pond through a friend, who participated on quiz bowl forums and serves as the president of UCLA Quiz Bowl. Mobassir and Pond met up and found more people with similar interests. SBQBT was recognized in September 2011.