The fourteen teams safely into Round 2, listed in order of qualifications with their scores and winning margins, are:
- Queen's University Belfast (140, 35)
- Reading (180, 60)
- Trinity College Cambridge (300, 150)
- Queens' College Cambridge (190, 20)
- Clare College Cambridge (195, 40)
- SOAS (230, 75)
- Manchester (215, 110)
- Liverpool (295, 255)
- Peterhouse Cambridge (250, 105)
- York (270, 200)
- Somerville College Oxford (255, 110)
- Cardiff (145, 50)
- Downing College Cambridge (260, 145)
- Bangor (230, 120)
I will need to see how Liverpool and York fare against stronger opponents before we decide if they should be seriously considered for the title. Many times in recent years, teams that have trounced their first opponents have struggled against stronger teams (Imperial last year, and Edinburgh three years ago).
Aside, from Trinity, I would also say SOAS are good bets to reach the QFs, as they also defeated a good team who managed a good score by a decent margin. I suppose it helps that they are probably a great deal older than most of the others, but, then, SOAS is one of those institutions that is just more likely to have older students (as was said by someone last series).
Aside from those two, I have no idea who to tip for the QFs. There are a whole load of teams who could make it with a favourable draw. And a couple who will have to pick the pace up to survive.
Also, as has been already noted, this year's Manchester team don't seem as strong as their predecessors. Of course, they may well pick up the pace next time around (we all know how badly last year's Manchester team began, and they went on to win the whole thing).
On to the repechage, where the four teams competing are:
- Durham (170, 20)
- Southampton (155, 75)
- Loughborough (155, 40)
- Christ Church Oxford (150, 150)
Overall, the first round this year was much better than the first round last year, where only a handful of teams broke 200; this year, only a handful of winning teams haven't! And the standard feels better than last year too. I can only hope things will not tail off, and we will be in for a good repechage and second round.
Still no word on the draw for next Monday's match, but Durham vs Christ Church would be my best guess, followed by Southampton vs Loughborough. Hopefully, we'll know for sure shortly.
If you're picking SOAS to go through, I think you'd have to include Somerville as well - they won under very similar circumstances, and Pembroke only missed the play offs by ten points. Perhaps Peterhouse ought to be included in that group too, though Balliol weren't quite as good as Southampton or Pembroke.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is fair to say as well; those two would be worth betting on as well. But, to be honest, wouldn't like to call anything for certain. I just called the two first round winners who impressed me most.
DeleteIt's something of a pain to have to agree with you that the standard this year is higher than last year. All I can say is that it's not my fault, honest!
ReplyDeleteI’m in the same position as opaltiger when I find myself assessing the first round as a whole, because I may know a few things, or I may not, about what happens next. Either way, anything that I say here is written as if I were a viewer watching these episodes for the first time, and you shouldn’t read too much into it.
ReplyDeleteFive Cambridge teams are coming back in round 2, I notice – this certainly seems like a lot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few of them bite the dust here. Trinity College, though, will be seen in the quarter-finals… I will bet my house on that! The big difference between Trinity this year and previous big-hitters like York 2011, Manchester 2012 and even UCL 2013 is that they made 300 points against another class act, which gives me every confidence that they will be able to face down more strong opposition.
Whether the same can be said of this year’s York and Liverpool is another matter. York could certainly go far if they manage to win most of the buzzer races in their next game, because their bonus work was pretty good. However – and I know I’m not the first person to say this – we haven’t seen them seriously challenged on the buzzers yet. All we can do is wait, I guess.
At the lower end of the raw hierarchy of first round winners, Cardiff, Queen’s Belfast and Reading could still have a few surprises to offer. Last year’s apparent stragglers after the first round (Bangor, Bath and Bristol) all looked like surefire casualties of round 2, but Bangor not only survived, but took down a major contender for the title in the process. I thus suspect that at least one of Cardiff, Belfast and Reading will make the QFs, but that at least one will be seen off in round 2.
The repechage contains our usual stock characters: two teams who were thrashed, but came out of their thrashings with a bit of respectability for holding firm in the face of onslaughts, and two teams who narrowly lost tense, evenly-matched games. I really enjoy it when this sort of line-up emerges, as it’s never easy to balance out the Dr Watson-esque comment “They lost by a massive margin” with Holmes’ teasing retort “But they lost against much stronger opponents”. Like everyone else who’s written in on this, I tip Christ Church to survive to round 2 (more on my link to them later). As for us… well, let’s just say our repechage match is the grudge match that you’d never guess was a grudge match.
As for Manchester, I can only say one thing… never underestimate them! If we’ve learnt anything from last year’s Mancunians, it’s this. I think it was Mr Clark over on LAM who coined the phrase “you’ll never get rich by betting against Manchester”, and I for one am not willing to bet against them in the next round!
A cursory look over the first round, Harry Hill-style, reveals a wealth of strong comedy moments and fantastic answers, which are both good to see on a show like UC. Aberdeen’s “Bridge over the River Kwai” surely takes the biscuit for the most outrageous answer so far, with Clare College’s “Jeff” and Balliol’s “James” coming closely behind. And there’s at least one more strong contender for this title coming in the repechage games.
I’d say the award for “most spectacularly good buzz-in” goes to our own Opaltiger (for the instantaneous “Pink Floyd” and the soon-to-be-notorious “zinc”), with a large number of others just following behind, including almost everyone on the Downing College team. My “100 days” answer certainly doesn’t get a look-in, because it was the sort of question that I absolutely had to answer and answer correctly, but I hesitated over it for quite some time – much more time than the broadcast suggested!
Here’s to an equally exciting second round. All the really positive comments that have been pouring in from the UC/quizzing community are making me really proud to have been in a series of such high quality, so I thank you all for your interest and kind words.
I think you're right in that we've seen so many good teams that some of them are bound to fall simply by virtue of playing another of those good teams! I'm also expecting at least one utter surprise, because if experience has taught us anything it's that there is always that one team who looks mediocre in round one and then turns out to actually be really quite good.
DeleteThank you for the kind words, both about our team and me personally - though I've set the bar rather high for myself, so I'm afraid I might have to disappoint next time round!