Last week, students were bombarded with questions on topics ranging from Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to Anna Nicole Smith at the 2007 College Bowl National Championship Tournament at the University of Southern California.

College Bowl is an academic quiz program where four-person teams answer questions covering a broad spectrum of topics, said Kitty Willis, the HUB games manager and coach of the UW’s College Bowl team. Each game consists of two fast-paced, eight-minute halves where each team has its own buzzer to answer questions.

First, the game’s moderator asks a toss-up question. The first team to answer receives 10 points, as well as the opportunity to answer a bonus question worth 20 to 30 points.

“Players at the national level are so good they’re ringing in to answer questions before they are halfway read,” said senior and team member Andy Greeley.

This is the sixth time the UW has participated in the national tournament in the past 10 years, Willis said. The last time the UW participated was in 2004, when the team placed sixth.

The UW placed seventh at this year’s national tournament, but Greeley achieved the second-highest score, averaging 73.67 points per game. Greeley also received the second-highest score in 2004.

Greeley didn’t seem to be affected or even aware of his impressive high score.

“I wasn’t following the statistics,” Greeley said. “My mom called me after and told me.”

Greeley said preparation for the tournament is difficult.

“You have to make sure you pay a lot of attention to the news; a lot of questions have to do with current events,” he said. “It’s also good to pay [attention] in your classes and know science, literature and geography; [as well as] politics, sports and pop culture.”

Team members David Jessup, Elizabeth Korsmo, Andrew Larkoski and Susruta Maiti joined Greeley at the national tournament.

Before making it to nationals, the team competed in a regional qualifying tournament.

The UW won the region 14 tournament held at Oregon State University in February.

The UW’s team members are selected in a campus-wide tournament held every year. The best players are chosen to make up an all-star team to represent the UW at tournaments.

Reach reporter Shauna Nuckles at news@thedaily.washington.edu.