University Challenge 2016-17: Grand Final Preview

Well guys, this is it: less than a week to go before the University Challenge final. It's been a great series, with some very close matches between very evenly matched teams, and after all that jazz, we have our two finalist teams. They are:
Wolfson College Cambridge: Justin Yang, Ben Chaudhri, Eric Monkman and Paul Cosgrove.
and
Balliol College Oxford: Freddie Potts, Jacob Lloyd, Joey Goldman and Ben Pope.

So, for the fourth year in a row, it's an Oxbridge final, and for the third year in a row, we have a rematch on our hands. So, how did these two get this far?

Wolfson won a very close first round match over SOAS, before a more comfortable victory over fellow Cambridge side Jesus College in the second round. They then narrowly beat Balliol (more on them later) in the preliminaries, before surprisingly losing to Edinburgh in their qualifier match. They redeemed themselves by beating Warwick in the play-offs, and then won a closely fought semi-final Cambridge derby over Emmanuel to reach the final.

Balliol breezed through the first two rounds, beating Imperial of London in the first round, and Robinson of Cambridge in the second, both by large margins. They then lost that close preliminary to Wolfson, before recovering with a very easy victory over Birmingham. They then beat Corpus Christi of Oxford in the play-offs and Edinburgh in the semi-finals, both by good margins, to reach the final.

So, both teams reach this stage having already lost in the process, and thus both have played six matches, so, for the first time in a while, we have even stats for both sides to calculate.

Both sides have played six matches; Wolfson have accumulated 1,100 points thus far, while Balliol have 1,285 points in the bank. Average those over the six matches, Wolfson have averaged 183.33 (rounded to two decimals), and Balliol 214.17 (ditto).

As for points conceded meanwhile, Wolfson have conceded 955, an average of 159.17 per match (again rounded), and Balliol 675, an average of 112.5 per match.

So, despite losing that first encounter between these two teams, the raw stats both points to a Balliol victory. But, of course, those are just raw stats, and for the last two years, they pointed to close matches, and we ended up with anything but in both cases!

So, what else can we look at to find clues as to who'll win? Well, lets look at the bonus rates thus far; Wolfson have converted 108 out of 191 so far, while Balliol have managed 132 out of 205 so far. So Balliol have fared better on the bonuses as well.

Now, though, we come to what the match will probably be decided on: the buzzer stats.

Wolfson's captain Mr Monkman is the highest scorer of the series so far, with 42 starters under his belt thus far, and his opposite number Mr Goldman the second highest with 36 starters.

More tellingly, however, Mr Monkman's colleagues have combined for 23 between them thus far, while Mr Goldman's have 34 between them thus far, thus suggesting they are better prepared to pick up the slack should he have an off day. Balliol have also answered five starters more than their opponents.

So, all the statistical evidence I've tallied up this far points to a Balliol victory.

However, Wolfson have possibly the most important stat in their favour: they won the previous encounter between these two sides, and that throws things back in their favour somewhat. And at the end of the day, as we've seen many times in previous years, stats mean nothing, performance on the night is what matters.

And so, once again, we have a grand final where the cases for both sides winning are both equally strong, and thus, I find myself unable to call the winner at all.

Whatever happens, lets just hope this series gets the finale it deserves. As I said before, it's been a great series, and whichever of these two wins will deserve to do so. Best of (retrospective) luck to both sides once again!

So, here's my schedule for the coming week and a bit: I'll, hopefully, be reviewing Friday's OC final on Sunday, otherwise it'll be over a week before I can do it as I'm away next week. I'll cover UC as usual on Monday, and my usual end of series lookbacks will be popping up periodically over the week.

As William G Stewart would say, 'do please stay with us'.