Evening all. We're back for the final second round match before we move onto the increasingly controversial group phase. I've been discussing the 'need for reform' with someone on the (DoND) forum, with various different theories being proposed. I shall go into these in greater depth later this week.
Oxford Brookes narrowly squeaked through their first match back in July, beating Jesus College Oxford 130-120. Hoping for a more comfortable win tonight, the team, including JOW reader 'asphinctersays', were the same as before:
Simon Joyce, from North Oxfordshire, studying Spatial Planning
Paula Ayres, from Hertfordshire, studying the History of Medicine
Captain: David Ballard, from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, studying Politics and International Relations
Stephen Mayes, from Canterbury, studying History
University College London defeated the pleasant and desperately unlucky Exeter team 230-140 in their first round match in late September. Hoping for similar success tonight, they were also unchanged:
Bethany Drew, from Surrey, studying English Literature
Andrew Brueton, from London, studying Law
Captain: Thomas Halliday, from Edinburgh, studying Vertebrate Paleantology
Harold Gunnarsson, studying Geomatic Engineering
Off we set again then, and U.C.L. started poorly, losing five on the first starter; Oxford Brookes didn't pick up the drop, but, eventually, got the next starter, with Mr Ballard baffling Paxo with his pronounciation of Van Gogh's name! U.C.L. soon recouped their lost points, and leveled the scores. Oxford Brookes took a second starter, and this time took two starters. They also took the first picture round, on BAFTA winners for best non-English film written in their original language; this allowed them to open a lead of 45-10.
That lead got bigger when Simon Joyce ('asphinctersays') took the next starter; the side took one bonus, and were unlucky to miss another. Harold Gunnarsson took U.C.L.'s second starter of the match, and the side took all three bonuses to cut the gap. Another slip-up then lost some of that ground, and our man Simon was unlucky not to take the points from the drop. U.C.L. made up for that mistake with the next starter, and only one bonus followed again. A low scoring match, but it was certainly close.
Neither side took the music starter, Paxo being slightly amused by a guess of Haydn from Oxford Brookes; the bonuses, on excerpts of composers conducting their own work, went to U.C.L., and two bonuses gave them a narrow lead of 65-60. That lead vanished when our man Simon took the next starter, but bonuses on semi-obscure French presidents only bought them one bonus. David Ballard took the next starter, and a full bonus house bought them into three figures. U.C.L. tried to get back into the match, but only managed to lose ten points via two slip-ups. Third time lucky, they got back in, and took all three bonuses to keep in touch.
The second picture round, on stills from Oscar winning films for best costume design, went to Oxford Brookes, and they took all three bonuses to up their lead to 125-80. Thomas Halliday was unlucky to lose five on the next starter, not quite managing to answer precisely enough and handing the points to the opposition. Two bonuses followed, and when our man Simon took the next correct starter, you began to think a surprise win was likely on. U.C.L. just about kept that in doubt by taking the next starter, and one bonus, but when they lost yet another five on the next starter, you began to think they weren't going to get there.
Another starter was dropped, but when Simon J. took the next starter, that looked likely to suffice; the side took all three bonuses just to make sure. U.C.L.'s night was just about summed up when they lost five once again on the next starter; by now, it didn't matter that Oxford Brookes didn't pick up the points, or that U.C.L. did take the night's final starter. At the gong, Oxford Brookes won 180-90.
A low scoring match all round, neither side quite making it into gear. Bad luck to U.C.L., who were doing the right thing in keeping on going for it but got horribly unlucky several times; well done to them anyway for not totally disgracing themselves and making entertaining TV many times. Well done to Simon and co on a better performance than last time, and best of luck to yous in the QFs!
Our man Simon was Oxford Brookes' best buzzer with four starters, which equaled U.C.L.'s highest individual tally by Bethany Drew. On the bonuses, Oxford Brookes converted a fair 18 out of 30, and U.C.L. an also good 11 out of 20, but with seven(!) penalties I'm afraid.
Next week: the QFs begin! No word on who's on yet; my guess would be Bristol and Liverpool, but that's just a guess.
Only Connect has now reached the play-off point where one time winners/losers play off to get into the QFs. No spoilers, but I'm informed VCM was a clue herself tonight!
I'll be back in a couple of days' time with my usual second round review/QF preview, as well as some more thoughts on format reform.
I certainly wasn't expecting that, and there's a strange story behind why I wasn't expecting that.
ReplyDeleteA few months ago, I met a contestant from this series between his first-round win and second-round appearance, and asked him who his second-round opponents would be. He thought about it for a second, said "UCL" and then corrected himself! It looked like a slip of the tongue, and thus an implication that his team and UCL would both go further and meet in at least the QFs. It now looks like he may have fed us a red herring instead!
This contestant wasn't from Oxford Brookes, so I was expecting Simon and co to bow out at the end of this match, and UCL to head on towards this mysterious future confrontation. But no! Well done to Brookes, and best of luck to you in the QFs.
I imagine it'll be Bristol-Liverpool next week as well, followed by Brookes vs St Peter's, and then probably Magdalen-Trinity and Durham-Caius. But I'm just speculating - I know nothing about what may be to come in the series. It's been another great round 2, and I look forward to the next stage.
It was so strange watching this back; it was filmed 10 months ago and I’d forgotten half of the questons.
ReplyDeleteAs I may have mentioned previously, we were a little surprised to make the TV rounds and I for one was expecting us to get knocked out in the first round. Our first round win was our first win in quizzing in more than 10 attempts after having lost all of our Quizbowl matches at a tournament in Oxford and all of our group matches in the Oxford collegiate tournament which Oxford kindly allowed us to take part in. After our first round performance (which was doubly special for me as I did my undergraduate degree at Jesus back in the midsts of time), I was happy just to be going back up to Salford for a second time whilst being able to say I’d won a match on University Challenge and have the recording to someday show my son (who was in utero at the time of recording).
Sadly our second trip hadn’t started well as our reserve Matt had been hospitalised the previous evening after being violently mugged on his way home after a night out. We had to make repeated assurances to the production crew that the four of us were all healthy and were actually going to arrive on time as we didn’t have a reserve for our reserve. The production crew were cracking and organised a ‘get well soon’ card for Matt by the time we arrived at the studio with the main message on it penned by Jeremy.
Also on arrival at the studio we discovered our opponents were UCL and that they’d racked up an impressive performance in the first round, so we knew we would probably be in for a tougher time than in our first match. It was fair to say that my expectations were not especially high and again, I was looking to avoid a sub-50 point performance and secure at least one starter for myself.
We met UCL in make-up and they seemed pretty confident, spending their time there and in the green room playing along in a rather competitive manner with the St Peter’s-Selwyn match on the monitors.
Once we started the match though, we got a couple of starters and found ourselves around 30 points up. When UCL fought back to go 65-60 up I thought the writing was on the wall and they would disappear into the distance, but we managed to fight back. I was especially pleased that Steve got a few science questions, he’s not a scientist, but he has the only science A level we have between the four of us so was tasked with ‘learning science’.
The FINA starter was one of those that fell right into my lap; I swim competitively to national standard, so if I hadn’t got that I wouldn’t have lived it down. That aside, I got outbuzzed on another four starters, throughout our shows I often found myself to be not quite quick (brave?) enough on the buzzer.
I knew how quickly leads can change and how two full sets can close what seems like a large 50 point gap instantly, but the more UCL kept buzzing in with incorrect answers and we could take the starter, the more confident I became that we could pull off the win. The last section of the match after the second picture round seemed to drag on forever, but I commented to Paula that as long as we didn’t start racking up -5s, we would be ok.
And we were into the quarters and perhaps more surprised at the result of this match than our first! UCL, perhaps unsurprisingly, seemed really disappointed to lose, but as with most teams, we had a nice chat over a beer and glass of wine in the green room with them afterwards. On to the quarters; the first match we’d record the following day and then come back a month later for our second/further matches.
Thank you for those thoughts Simon. Congratulations on your win too, and best of (hypothetical) luck next time!
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