- Pembroke College Cambridge (455 over two matches)
- New College Oxford (445 over two matches)
- King's College Cambridge (535 over three matches)
- St George's College London (405 over two matches)
- Manchester University (400 over two matches)
- Imperial College London (470 over two matches)
- University College London (475 over two matches)
- Bangor University (300 over two matches)
So, what do these raw figures say about the team's chances?
Well, U.C.L. have the highest score of the seven two matchers, but Imperial are only five behind them. However, as James [Gratrex] has pointed out, Imperial may not have been tested against strong teams yet, as both their opponents have been, with all due respect, a little on the mediocre side. (Lest we forget, two years ago, Bristol gave a great second round performance against a mediocre team, causing some to overestimate them).
U.C.L. have earned their points against better teams, as have Manchester and St George's. St George's are perhaps the most underrated team left, IMO. They have twice scored strongly against good teams (one of them King's, who are also in the quarters). They could be dark horses for the quarters.
Pembroke have defeated one good, and one mediocre team to get this far.
New College, on the other hand, have defeated two very good teams on their route here, scoring over 200 on both occasions. That gives them a definite boost in these terms.
Bangor's score may seem a little out compared to the others, but, lest we forget, they defeated the much-fancied Durham, who had been tipped as possible champions after their first match, in the second round.
And King's, well, they have lost one match, but their two victories since have both been over strong teams, which is a sign of a good team.
So, if you want me to choose which teams will reach the semis eventually, I would probably say New College, for reasons stated above, and maybe U.C.L., although not as confidently. As for the others, I have no idea. It's been a tightly fought series, with the teams quite closely grouped together in terms of overall scores.
The quarter-finals begin on Monday with Manchester vs Imperial, followed by U.C.L. vs Bangor the week after.
I'll be back on Sunday with my weekly DoND summary; it's been quite a week so far!
That list sure makes us (Bangor) look bad!
ReplyDeleteWhat were you saying before about a result of one of the last two matches being leaked on twitter?
I've explained all on the thread for Monday's game.
ReplyDeleteI've been attempting to produce a sort of ranking of teams taking everything into account - Total score, Opponent's score, comparing these to overall average scores this season. I can't decide whether I've got these rankings right or not, in particular I think that King's has been slightly inflated because of the extra match. But anyway here they are. The scores next to each team represent my attempt to measure performance compared to expectation. Everything has been rounded to the nearest five points:
ReplyDelete1. UCL; 55
2. New College, Oxford; 50
3. St. George's, London; 30
4. King's College, Cambridge; 20
5=. Manchester; 15
5=. Pembroke College, Cambridge; 15
7. Imperial College, London; 10
8. Bangor; -35
Average Match score this season: 195 - 125.
With apologies to Bangor for their negative score on my table. It's been dragged down heavily by a low-scoring first-round match, but after victory against Durham they are clearly worthy Quarter-Finalists and if we ignored their first-round match they would be tied in this system with King's.
So what does this tell us? Not a lot, probably but it's still difficult to look past UCL and New College both getting through and certainly the table reflects that, while Imperial have looked strong but against weaker opposition and similarly they come low in the table. So based on this you'd probably call the semi-finalists as being UCL, New College and any other two. We'll see how things go in the coming weeks as the top teams start squaring up against each other.
Bangor's reward for making the quarter-finals is a match against UCL, to be shown in two Mondays' time. Good luck... you'll need it I think!
No need to apologise - if we were a better team we'd have done better in the first round!
ReplyDeleteI think our two games do illustrate though the variety in the questions, from my point of view anyway. I got nothing in the first match, and didn't *know* any answers; in the second not only did I get three starters, but I knew another two, and would have got them if Durham hadn't beaten me to it (the one on Ether, and the Fleetwood Mac music round. The latter was really my fault, because when Paxman said it was going to be popular music I just switched off... it would have been one of the only pieces of popular music I happen to recognise instantly (I played it in a band once)! I also might have gotten the mathematical brainteaser (How many people to guarantee three shared birthdays), I figured it out before the Durham guy guessed wrong, but of course Simon (Tomlinson) had already buzzed in early. It sounds a little like special pleading I suppose but I do think the question set in our first match was unusually hard, or at least, it didn't suit the knowledge set of our team.
A little addition to my earlier analysis: If King's College had only played (and won) two matches, then they'd actually be third with a score of 35. So perhaps the position they've come out at the moment is relatively fair - where the rounding I've done to the nearest five points really means that King's, Manchester and Pembroke (and, to some extent, even Imperial) are all basically equivalent. The quarters should be very close.
ReplyDelete