0
0
President Joe Biden and the Journalism 2 class shared a common love for the Delaware Blue Hens, a 16 seed in the 2022 NCAA Men’s Basketball.
After the first weekend of March Madness, the class’s bracket is at 2%, the bottom of the 7 Avonews brackets for this year. Delaware, a heavy underdog, lost.
Since President Biden was a Delaware senator for decades and alumni of the University, his choice of this heavy underdog seemed sensible. But why did the class at Avonworth pick this significant underdog to not only win in a huge upset, but then move on to make history by winning the whole tournament?
Freshman Gbemi Odebode selected the upper half of the brackets for the class, including Delaware because she knew about the Delaware River from history class and Villanova’s name was unappealing to her.
Gbemi’s impulse driven, basketball-averse selection method ended up the only student contribution to this year’s brackets, as Mr, Tuffiash used the “random chalk” autofill to complete the rest. Other classmates either opted not to pick teams or missed the deadline.
Why does the Journalism 2 class pick brackets?
“I had a small section a few years back that were basketball fans, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to emphasize how the brackets are great launching grounds for so many little, fun human interest stories, ” said Mr. Tuffiash, Journalism teacher and Avonews Advisor. “They ended up picking the 16 seed upset that year, the UMBC game, and so I’ve just tried to keep this activity in the course as something fun that also gives opportunities for light reporting instead of more heated editorials or more stressful school news stories.”
Each year the class ends up with at least one bracket in the 80% by the end of the tournament, not enough to win any contests but at least a respectable outcome for the usually non-scientific, non-data-based bracket selections.
For coverage of Avonews bracketology during the COVID pandemic, click here.
UPDATE: Tuesday, April 5th – final status for the 2022 j2 bracket:
Best bracket – from one of the other 5 selected under the name, mostly through Mr. Tuffiash’s selections:
