University Challenge 2020-21: Semi-Finals Preview

Well, here we are once again people, at the semi-final stage of University Challenge. Last year's semi-final line-up was arguably the strongest we'd had since I started this blog, and this year's is also pretty solid. Our four semi-finalist line-ups are:

• Warwick (Richard Pollard, George Braid, Andrew Rout and Owen Burrell) Ran up the joint second highest score of the first round as they defeated Wolfson of Oxford 255-105, before beating fellow Wolfson conquerors Merton of Oxford 190-90 in the second. Came straight through the quarter-finals after beating fellow semi-finalists Imperial and Magdalene 200-120 and 200-160 respectively. Strong on both the buzzers, with all four players contributing well, and the bonuses, especially when it comes to educated guesswork, throughout the series.
• Balliol College Oxford (Ben Tomasi, Solenne Scholefield, Michael O'Connor and Lily Crowther) Beat Clare of Cambridge 150-135 in a low scoring first match, before winning probably the best match of the second round against St John's of Cambridge 200-155. Also came straight through the quarter-finals after beating King's of London 145-95 and then Durham 175-75. Usually pretty balanced on the buzzer, apart from in the second round when Mr O'Connor very much ran the show, and about midway on the bonuses.
• Imperial College London (Justin Wong, Katie Marrow, Michael Kohn and Imran Rahman) Lost to Strathclyde in the first round, but survived to the play-offs to just beat Exeter 160-155 before a more comfortable 180-90 second round win over St Andrews. Then lost again to Warwick in the preliminaries, but recovered by beating King's 265-95 and Durham 200-100. Strong on the buzzer throughout, Mr Kohn especially strong but the others contributing well as well, and pretty good on the bonuses too, usually between half and two thirds.
• Magdalene College Cambridge (James Byrne, Adam Davies, Daniel Lawson and Kerry Payne) Beat Univ. of Oxford 170-130 in the first round and then Corpus Christi of Oxford 185-115 in the second. Started the quarter-finals with a 240-140 win over Birkbeck, then lost to Warwick, before beating Strathclyde 185-125 to reach the semis. Another pretty well balanced team on the buzzer, with all four contributing well, and their bonus rate is very strong indeed, around or over two thirds every time.

Four good teams, all of whom are worthy semi-finalists, and all of whom would've been worthy winners. So, how do I see this going?

Well, I speculated on Monday night that the draw would keep Warwick and Balliol apart, and, as Warwick played Imperial before their played Magdalene, that they'd play the London side in the semis leaving the two Oxbridge teams together. As Mr Kohn liked my tweet saying this, and someone has added this to Wikipedia, I am going to assume this is correct.

So, first up, a rematch between Warwick and Imperial. Now, the first match between the two was a very close one at first, before Warwick ran away in the third quarter and Imperial recovered slightly towards the end. I don't think we can write this off as a foregone conclusion though; Warwick may be unbeaten so far, but Imperial are on a bit of a roll with their easy wins in their last two games, both of which have seen them finish very strongly.

Then we have Balliol vs Magdalene. This is also a pretty interesting one, as Balliol have the unbeaten record, but Magdalene arguably have the better looking stats in their favour on both the buzzer and the bonuses, including in the match they lost. It reminds me a bit of the Wolfson vs Balliol final from the Monkman and Seagull series of 16-17; Balliol had the better looking stats, but Wolfson had the advantage of having beaten them previously. If you're going on stats and ignoring the fact Magdalene have a loss to their name, they'd look easy favourites, but you can't overlook Balliol having the unbeaten record, and their ability to grind out results against strong opponents.

So, in short, I'm saying both these matches are way too close to call and both could feasibly go either way. These are four good teams and, as I said, all would be worthy finalists and winners. If you forced me to predict the final, I'd go for Warwick vs Magdalene, but I wouldn't be surprised if either match went the other way.

 

(Incidentally, I've made these 'forced' predictions for the last two series; two series ago, I was completely wrong, but last year I was spot on. Make of that what you will.)

So all that remains for me to do is wish all four teams best of (retrospective) luck and hope that the semis and final are all fine matches! Best of luck to all!

Back on Monday with my usual write-up, plus a probably decision on whether I'm going to fully review the Only Connect final (probably won't do the third place play-off this year); until then, sayonara!