Rutgers’ Jeopardy! Winners Return for the Tournament of Champions

Alumnus Scott Riccardi and grad student Allegra Kuney have returned to the set for the annual competition

After taking home $455,000 over 16 days on Jeopardy!, Rutgers alumnus Scott Riccardi is now one of the top winners in the game show's history, making its "Leaderboard of Legends" in two categories: most consecutive wins and biggest prize money.

Riccardi, a 2021 School of Engineering graduate, is one of two people from Rutgers competing in the show's annual Tournament of Champions, airing this month. Allegra Kuney, a Rutgers doctoral student in the School of Communication and Information, qualified for the tournament late in the 42^nd season after winning $92,600.

During the tournament's taping in California in November, the two Jersey residents met for the first time and bonded over Rutgers, Kuney said.

"We talked about restaurants nearby. He was an undergraduate here like five years ago, so he was asking, is this place still there? Is that place still there? The College Avenue Wendy's?'" Kuney said.

They both grew up watching the show with their families, a dinnertime ritual of gathering around the television and shouting out the answers.

"It was one of the few shows that everyone was equally interested in whenever we would visit my grandparents," said Riccardi, 26, who grew up in South Plainfield, N.J. and now lives in Somerville, N.J.

"Whatever we were happen to be doing at the time, we'd say, 'Oh, Jeopardy! is on,'" recalled Kuney, who lives in New Brunswick, N.J., but grew up in Rockland County, N.Y. She remembers one year for Halloween, her brother, Andre, dressed as Alex Trebek, the show's longtime former host.

Riccardi is the New Jersey native of the two, but he missed - twice - on one of the most iconic Jersey-connected television shows: The Sopranos.

He's a big television fan and used to watch lots of it, he said, but just never got around to watching The Sopranos, which began airing a couple of months before he was born.

"I know, shocking, since it's considered one of the best shows of all time and it's New Jersey," Riccardi said.

As it turned out, he also hasn't seen what many consider to be one of the greatest movies of all time, Citizen Kane, the 1941 film loosely based on the media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. If he had seen it, maybe he would have extended his winning streak.

Riccardi's run on the show came to an end on what many considered to be an easy Final Jeopardy! clue: "According to one obituary, in 1935 he owned 13 magazines, eight radio stations, two movie companies and $56 million in real estate."

The correct response is William Randolph Hearst, but Riccardi put down, "Who is Howard Hughes?"

Riccardi's loss was such a surprise that a few even speculated that he purposely responded incorrectly.

"There's just not a single reason that anyone would go through the trouble of getting on the show, living their dream, making all this money per day, and walk away from it willingly," he lamented.

So, how did he miss?

"I had read about Howard Hughes multiple times when I was doing my prep and about his film studios in particular. During that time, I don't think I even came across William Randolph Hearst's name once," said Riccardi, who prepared for the show by reading lots of Wikipedia pages. "So, when the clue came on, I locked in on the film studios right away. I got really excited. I thought, wow, it's got to be Howard Hughes because of the film studios. I had no idea that Hearst had film studios."

Before returning to Jeopardy! for the taping of Tournament of Champions, Riccardi had intended to catch up on The Sopranos, watch Citizen Kane or, on a friend's suggestion, possibly visit Hearst Castle in California, but he didn't get to any of that.

Unlike Riccardi, who had months to get ready for the tournament, Kuney had only weeks.

"I didn't have much time to prepare because I filmed my original episodes at the beginning of October and then, literally, five weeks later, I was doing the Tournament of Champions," she said. "So, I just tried to go back and looked at my episodes and see what I missed because I didn't want to get the same thing wrong twice."

She skimmed through a 2025 almanac her father had given her, tried using flashcards and making lists to quiz herself, and visited J! Archive, a fan-created archive of Jeopardy! clues, to cram as much information as she could in the little time that she had.

"At a certain point, you just have to be confident that you'll knows this," Kuney said. "You could study and try to fill all those gaps in your knowledge, but then something else could come up that you didn't study or even think to study."

Even though Kuney didn't join Riccardi on the show's Leaderboard of Legends, she did set a record for her season: the biggest wager on a correct response. On Nov. 6, Kuney wagered $17,001 on Final Jeopardy! and accumulated $65,001 after two days.

She exited the show on her fifth appearance that aired Nov. 11 on the Final Jeopardy! category of "Romans." She had the correct response (Who is Marcus Aurelius?) but her opponent successfully wagered more.

She had a different experience than Riccardi after her episodes aired. Riccardi became a small celebrity around the state; strangers recognized him, requesting selfies on occasion. He even threw out the first pitch at a Somerset Patriots game in August.

"I have not gotten recognized on campus," said Kuney, who will be teaching a class this semester at Rutgers-New Brunswick. "I don't know how many Rutgers students are watching Jeopardy! A couple of professors and a few people in my department watched it and sent me emails, but no students and no random people on campus."

Like Riccardi, Kuney's favorite Jeopardy! categories are the wordplays, where there are mashed up or hidden phrases, crossword clues, definition or puns. On her first appearance Nov. 5, Kuney nearly ran the board in "movie title change a letter" category, which included this clue: "In this animated Disney classic from 1991, an attractive maiden is imprisoned in a castle with a sourdough starter." Kuney correctly responded "What is Beauty and the Yeast?"

Those lighthearted categories is one reason Riccardi said he adores the show.

"It's pure trivia, but you learn something watching it," he said. "It's light and it's fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously."

Riccardi quipped that Rutgers may have helped him prepare for the show in more ways than his mechanical engineering degree.

"There's a lot of buildings and places that have famous New Jersey namesakes," Riccardi said. "I don't think there's anybody on that Jeopardy! stage who's more ready to answer a clue about Joyce Kilmer or Paul Robeson than me."

Except, maybe, Kuney.

"When you do a Ph.D., so much of that is research skills," Kuney said. "The whole process and everything I've learned in the coursework at Rutgers definitely had a hand in strengthening those Jeopardy! skills."