Well, folks, here we are again: previewing yet another University Challenge final. It has been the most unusual of series, through no fault of its own, what with the long recording break and the play-offs onwards being recorded socially distant. But we do now, at last, have our two finalist teams; they are:
Warwick: Richard Pollard, George Braid, Andrew Rout and Owen Burrell.
and
Magdalene College Cambridge: James Byrne, Adam Davies, Daniel Lawson and Kerry Payne.
So, for the third season in a row, the final is an Oxbridge team vs a non-Oxbridge team. Both institutions are playing their second final: Warwick won their first back in 2006-07, while Magdalene's first back in 1978 saw them beaten by the Sidney Sussex Cambridge team, captained by future Tory MP David Lidington, who went on to win the Reunited series in 2002 (they really should do another of those next year!).
So, how did they get to it? Warwick did so unbeaten, beating Wolfson of Oxford in a very one sided first round match in spite of a slightly slow start, before a similarly easy second round win over Merton of Oxford. They came straight through the QFs by beating Imperial and Magdalene, who they face again now, both those matches seeing them race into a strong lead before their opponents recovered late on. Their semi against Imperial was much closer, with the two teams level for the most part until a well timed sprint saw them just put enough buffer between their opponents to see the game out.
Magdalene also reached the quarter-finals with wins over two Oxford teams: the first round win over Univ. of Oxford went a bit under the radar somewhat, but their second over Corpus Christi, captained by the excellent Mr Webb, was when people started to take notice of them. This was confirmed when they defeated Birkbeck in a very good first quarter-final; they then lost to Warwick, of course, but rebounded with a steady victory over Strathclyde before thumping Balliol in the semis to reach the final.
So, now comes to the stats, and there really isn't much in it...
Magdalene have, of course, played one match more, but their average score over six games of 201.67 (rounded to two digits) is barely above Warwick's 201 over five matches. Their points conceded also isn't that much more, 126.67 (again, rounded to two digits) to Warwick's 122.
In terms of bonuses, Warwick have thus far coverted 96 correct out of 162, while Magdalene's stands at 128 out of 180. This confirms what we suspected two weeks ago when we previewed the semis: that Magdalene's bonus rate has always been around two thirds or just over. Warwick's is just over half, and I'm actually a tiny bit surprised by that, especially given how many times they've correctly taken an educated guess.
On the buzzers, Magdalene have answered 62 starters correct to Warwick's 45. That's not surprising given they've played a game extra, but if you average them out, it ends up with Warwick at 9 per match and Magdalene at 10.33 (rounded to two digits) per match.
So, what of the previous match between the two teams? Well, that ended 200-160 to Warwick, but it wasn't really as close as that; Warwick raced into a lead of 145-30 before the music round, before Magdalene recovered slightly with a good rally, but Warwick just about did enough in the final third to see the game out.
So,
after I didn't do a Twitter poll last year, I have set one up this
year, and, at the time of writing, after 90 votes, Warwick lead with
58.9% to Magdalene's 41.1%. That seems to back up my thinking:
Warwick will, just about, start the match as favourites, but there's no way the match should be totally written off as a forgone conclusion; Magdalene are more than capable of winning out on the day.These are two great teams who've played brilliantly throughout the series; either would be a worthy winner. All I can hope is that we get a good final that stands up to these expectations. Best of luck to both teams, may the best team win!
That's all for now then, back on Monday with my usual review of the final. Until then, sayonara!
No comments:
Post a Comment