He went from starving on a deserted island to becoming a Jeopardy! champion. Now, Drew Basile reveals the shocking, grueling training regimen he believes will let him conquer the Tournament of Champions.
‘Jeopardy!’: Drew Basile Gives Big Update on Next Tournament of Champions & How He’s Preparing
Jeopardy, Inc.
Survivor alum Drew Basile recently impressed fans by winning seven straight Jeopardy! games, and he’s already thinking about coming back for the next Tournament of Champions.
Appearing on Rob Has A Podcast, hosted by former Survivor contestants Rob Cesternino and Stephen Fishbach, Basile opened up about how he’s preparing for the TOC, where he could potentially face off once again with super-champ Adriana Harmeyer, the contestant he toppled from her 15-game winning streak.
Basile said when he got the call to play Jeopardy! the first time, he only had three to four weeks to prepare, which meant lots of cramming, including scouring various Jeopardy! fansites and making flashcards on topics he wasn’t as knowledgeable about, such as food and drink, pop culture, and music.
For the TOC, he’s hoping to have eight months of prep time, though he admitted he hasn’t been told when exactly the tournament will film.
“It’s very unclear, they’re not telling me [when it will air], but I’m expecting the TOC to be in like March or February of next year, which gives me eight solid months of studying,” Basile said.
“I haven’t done much studying since taping Jeopardy,” he admitted, “but will hopefully get into gear coming up.”
One of the ways he’s going to keep on his toes is by attending SporcleCon in August. The event, organized by the popular trivia-based website Sporcle, will feature puzzles, quizzes, games, and more designed “for those who appreciate trivia the world over.”
Basile, who also finished in sixth place on Survivor 45 last fall, previously told Entertainment Weekly that he’s going to pay more attention to the structure of Final Jeopardy clues in his preparation for the TOC.
“I didn’t really pay enough attention to the structure of Jeopardy clues, the grammar of Jeopardy. Going back, I’m really going to spend a lot of time watching the show, paying attention to the way that those Final Jeopardy clues are structured,” he said, referring to FJ as his “weak point.”
One area where Basile isn’t weak, though, is his buzzer reaction times. “I’m a beast on the buzzer,” he told Rob Has A Podcast. “I’m better on the buzzer than maybe everyone but one person I played against.”
He did confess that Harmeyer “on her peak” could possibly be better than him on the buzzer, but he felt he was stronger than her in the game they played against one another.
Basile also shared some tips on buzzer technique for future contestants. “The gist of the buzzer is that they’ll read the question, and then there’s a light that goes on; the light is cued manually,” he explained. “And when you see the light, you buzz. If you buzz before the light shows up, you’re gonna lock yourself out for a quarter of a second.”
“So, my recommendation is, don’t look at the light all, just let them read the question, and buzz when the question sounds like it’s going to be over,” he continued. “That’s what I did.”
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