The student band Runaround beat the Splex roof last week, with El Clasico besting a perfect class registration on Monday.

A bracket of 64 campus contestants — including “Warm Cookie Wednesday,” “Dr. Jackson’s Beard,” and “Driving the Cybertruck” — are pitted against one another in an NCAA tournament-style bracket to decide which is best. Each round of the tournament, hundreds of students vote via Google Forms to decide each matchup. On March 23, the first round finished with nearly 300 responses, and on March 30, the second concluded with 250 responses. 

Senior Jonathan Williams, head resident assistant of Simpson Residence, created the tournament and said he was glad to see the campus embrace it.

“I did something similar in high school, but it was with a friend of mine who had a bunch of nicknames,” Williams said. “Over spring break, I realized I had a lot of time, and everybody was talking about the real world March Madness, so I texted a bunch of my friends ‘let’s try to think of obscure, specific Hillsdale things that you would only know if you went to Hillsdale.’”

Although the tournament was created by a Simpson RA, Williams said responses have come from all over campus.

“I told everybody to send it to all the group chats that they’re in, just to try to get as many people voting as possible,” he said. “So I’ve noticed a lot of people in Greek life are filling it out, a lot of people in dorm life, some people who I don’t even know are filling it out, which is the ideal.”

Williams said he was surprised by the first round.

“The students don’t like ‘Warm Cookie Wednesday’ as much as I thought they would,” Williams  said. “It barely won its round one game. I was also really surprised that ‘Saga Jill’ lost as a 5 seed to ‘Getting a B on your Great Books paper.’ I just think ‘Saga Jill’ is really iconic, and I thought the students were going to send her deep into this tournament, but she had a tough first round exit.”

Co-Head RA of Simpson, junior Joe Vankat, who helped create the tournament, agreed with Williams.

“‘Getting a B on a Great Books paper’ can be an accomplishment,” Vankat said. “But for me that was just kind of like a regular grade. So I voted for ‘Saga Jill’ because that’s the G.O.A.T.”

“Getting quoted in The Collegian” lost to “Open saga booth” by 25 points. Williams said the newspaper should take no offense.

“I’m actually surprised that ‘Getting quoted in The Collegian’ got 25% of the vote for that one, because an ‘Open saga booth’ is just one of the most prized things you can get,” he said. “I think an ‘Open saga booth’ will, for sure, make at least the Final Four.”

Vankat originally suggested the option of an “Open Saga booth.”

“If you get to dinner, and you find an open booth, especially around 6 p.m. after the main rush, and you happen to get an open one, that’s a great feeling,” Vankat said.

After the first round, Williams said he had favorites, but cannot control the outcome of the tournament.

“Obviously ‘Simpson Smackdown’ and ‘Simpson Asylum’ are my two favorites, being a diehard Simpson guy, but I know that because so many people are voting on this, the chances of those getting super far is a little low,” Williams said. “I also really like the one where a ‘professor reads aloud in class something you highlighted.’ I also really like the ‘Schlueter Family Band,’ I think that has a chance to go really far. I love what they bring to the community, and am excited to see how far they can go.”

“The Schlueter Family Band” was subsequently eliminated by “Saga Chick-fil-A” in the second round by 18 points. “Professor reads aloud in class something you highlighted” went on to beat “Christy Maier appointment” by 30 points after ousting “Matthew Tolbert salute” by 42 points.

Tolbert said he was surprised he was in the tournament to begin with.

“It was sort of that feeling in your entire body just sort of goes, ‘Wait, people are looking at me,’” he said.

The salute, Tolbert said, has a logic behind it.

“I found it was easier to do if you’re carrying something,” he said. “So I was like, ‘this seems like it’s the perfect way to say hi to someone from across campus’ — use a salute. And now apparently it’s a Matthew Tolbert trademark.”

“CHP Showdown” beat “Brock Lutz vest” by 35 points in the first round. Lutz said his attire’s inclusion was unexpected.

“I was pretty surprised to see that the vest made an appearance and was shocked that it wasn’t listed as a very low seed,” Lutz said. “Clearly, once again, this can likely be attributed to Simpson bias where someone like, well, let’s say, Jonathan Williams, assumes that simply because I was a Simpson head RA for two years, that means I’m clearly going to win this competition, hands down. Let’s face it, we Simpsonites chronically overstate our abilities.”

Lutz said he may sabotage the event after his loss.

“I thought about boycotting CHP Showdown in protest,” Lutz said, “but since I’ve never been, I’ve actually convinced Daniel Doyle to do a duet of ‘Love is an Open Door’ with me, thus cementing the fact that no one will ever vote for CHP showdown again. Who is Princess Anna and who is Hans? Stay tuned.”

Regardless of the winner, Williams said he hopes Hillsdale March Madness will continue after he graduates next month.

“If somebody out there likes it and they want to keep it going next year, go ahead,” Williams said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of different things that you could do for Hillsdale. I had a lot of options that didn’t make the bracket. So there’s definitely the chance that somebody could keep this going.”

To participate in the remaining rounds and fill out a bracket, email jwilliams@hillsdale.edu.