University Challenge: First Round Review

So, we’ve reached the end of the University Challenge first round matches. And the fourteen teams safely into the second round are, in order of qualification:

York University (185)

St George’s College London (175)

Bristol University (120)

Durham University (245)

Jesus College Oxford (150)

Magdalen College Oxford (205)

Manchester University (180)

Imperial College London (220)

Bangor University (125)

Pembroke College Cambridge (200)

Bath University (125)

University College London (260)

New College Oxford (230)

Warwick University (175)

And the four highest scoring losing teams, who will be playing in the repechage, are:

Lincoln College Oxford (175)

King’s College Cambridge (145)

Homerton College Cambridge (145)

Lancaster University (140)

So, what can we see from these stats? Well, U.C.L. had the highest score of the round (and the biggest victory, beating Exeter by 175 points); Durham are close behind, and also won by a big margin. New College and Imperial also stand out on this board. These four appear to be the initial favourites to progress to the quarter-finals, provided they don’t get drawn against each other.

In terms of representation, Oxford have three teams safely through, and a fourth in the repechage. Cambridge only have one team through, but, with two teams set to meet each other in the repechage, are guaranteed a second. London also has three teams through. The rest of the teams are mostly from throughout England, with one from Wales.

Best match of the first round, by a long way, has to be Manchester’s seemingly impossible comeback victory over Lincoln. St George’s vs King’s comes second.

Apart from these two matches, most of the rest of the first round matches were steady, but not spectacular. The lower scoring matches were made watchable by Paxo’s various reactions.

So, as usual, we can only hope that the pace will be picked up a bit in the knockout stages. Whatever, happens, it should make for interesting viewing, especially given the rather narrow range of winning scores in the first round.