University Challenge 2017: Round 2 round up and quarter final preview

I was asked earlier in the week whether I intended reviewing the second round of UC and previewing the quarter finals. I didn’t answer because I didn’t know if I’d find the time or the oomph to do it, but hey, I found a tiny bit of oomph knocking around at the back of the kitchen cupboards, so here it is.

Let’s have a look at the table: -

Quarter finalists	1st round	for	against	2nd round	for	against	Aggregate for	Aggregate against
Corpus Christi, Oxford	Jesus, Cambridge	200	175	Peterhouse, Cambridge	175	150	375	325
Bristol	Sheffield	210	130	Oriel, Oxford	265	70	475	200
Balliol, Oxford	Imperial	220	55	Robinson, Cambridge	210	90	430	145
Wolfson, Cambridge	SOAS	185	175	Jesus, Cambridge	225	140	410	315
Emmanuel, Cambridge	Nottingham	175	135	SOAS	195	130	370	265
Warwick	Liverpool	235	95	East London	195	55	430	150
Birmingham	Queen’s Belfast	165	105	St. Andrews	195	115	360	220
Edinburgh	Durham	190	155	Open	185	185	375	340

As a general round up there are a couple of points we might make. 5 teams from Cambridge made it through to the second round proper, but only 2 go through to the quarters, compared with 2 from 3 for Oxford. All 8 of the teams in the quarter final round won their first round matches as well.

As with the first round, throughout the second round the scores have remained good, rather than stratospheric. The highest score of the series so far is the SOAS repechage score of 270 – of the teams remaining in the competition, Bristol’s 265 is the highest.

Looking at the aggregate for and against columns, I think we need to firstly acknowledge that the danger of relying on this kind of data is that it doesn’t necessarily take into account the strength of the opposition. If we acknowledge this, though, it’s not unreasonable to say that the table suggests that Bristol look to be a very strong team. The same might also be said about Warwick – the size of the difference between the total points for and total points against suggests that both teams comprehensively outbuzzed their opponents in both opening matches. Of course, you’d maybe ask the question as to whether Warwick’s opposition were quite of the calibre of Bristol’s – and this is where the weakness of just relying on this data becomes more apparent.

And the calibre of opposition is important. If you take the raw figures for last week’s winners Corpus Christi, you’d say that they were outsiders for the quarters. Yet look who they had to beat to get there. Jesus were good enough to win a repechage, and Peterhouse had beaten opposition good enough to get into a repechage in their own first round. With regards to Emmanuel too, their win over Nottingham in the first round was perfectly decent although a little workman-like, but for the second they had to beat a SOAS team who had set the highest total of the series so far in their previous match, which they did.

Predictions? No thanks, this is all rather too close to call. What it will come down to, though, is what it always comes down to – the teams who find their buzzer form on the night(s) will do better than the teams that don’t. Looking forward to it already.