University Challenge 2022-23: First Round Review

So, it's rather crept up on us, but we've reached the first round of this year's UC! So, time for my end of round report. After last year's rather low scoring first round, this year's has seen a strong improvement, with lots of strong performances and good scores, from both winning and losing teams, giving us a very strong line-up for the elimination stage of the series indeed! And, at the end of it, our fourteen winning teams, along with their scores and margins of victory, are:

• Durham (195, 10)
• Newcastle (195, 80)
• University College Oxford (175, 65)
• Cardiff (230, 180)
• Royal Holloway London (155, 45)
• Queen's University Belfast (165, 60)
• St Andrews (140, 20)
• U.C.L. (170, won on tie-breaker)
• Christ's College Cambridge (150, 20)
• Jesus College Cambridge (225, 120)
• Southampton (215, 100)
• Bangor (135, 10)
• Courtauld Institute of Art (175, 15)
• Robert Gordon (210, 120)

 So, those, as ever, are the raw figures for the round; but what more to them is there?

Well, Cardiff have the highest score of the first round, with Jesus just 5 behind them, so they would probably start as the big favourites to progress; Jesus, in particular, as they achieved their score against a team good enough to get into three figures themselves. Ditto Southampton, who finished with just ten fewer in similar circumstances.

Just below them, Robert Gordon are the fourth and final team to break 200, and Newcastle who only just missed out against another respectable scoring opponent. Both would also be fancied to progress in favourable circumstances.

You would also have to say Durham, who only just defeated the similarly high scoring Bristol team (more on them later), would also be strongly fancied; U.C.L. and Courtauld, who also defeated high scoring runners-up, would also be ones to watch there.

 

Then you have the three teams, Univ., Queen's and Royal Holloway, who won with middling scores against teams who also scored decently. And finally, you have the three team, Christ's, St Andrews and Bangor, who won lower scoring close contests against pretty evenly matched opposition (one of whom completes the play-off line-up).

 

So, although some teams would probably start out looking more favourable than others, the fact is this is a pretty even line-up, and that's before we even take into account the four strong teams competing in the play-offs, two of whom will complete the line-up. And we know from our many years of covering UC this thoroughly how unreliable first round form can be to gauging how a team will perform in the second round (though, that said, it has been getting a bit better on that front in recent series).

 

And then, there are those play-offs, being contended by:

• Bristol (185, 10)
• Sheffield (170, lost on tie-breaker)
• Newnham College Cambridge (160, 15)
• Oriel College Oxford (130, 20)

And the draw for which pits, as expected, Bristol vs Oriel a week tomorrow and Sheffield vs Newnham tomorrow. (Unless the BBC website has gotten the preview pictures the wrong way round)

You'd have to say Bristol would be heavily fancied to beat an Oriel team who do look a bit like the odd one out from this group, while tomorrow's game would be far too close to call (Weaver's Week, published earlier, favours Newnham). But then, I said the same about last year's play-offs, and the 'easy' one turned out to be very close (albeit in far from normal circumstances) and the 'close' one ended up a pretty comfortable victory. So, who knows?

All we do know is that, whichever two of these teams come through to the second round, they would definitely be worth keeping an eye on against whoever they end up being drawn against. In fact, as we've seen before, one draw between two well-matched first round teams can often blow the whole field wide open.

One things we can all agree on, at least, is that this has been a fine first round, a definite improvement on last series' forgivably low scoring start, and, if things continue this way, the second round could be very good indeed! And probably quite brutal too, as you suspect at least a couple of the teams who fall in this round will be ones who, under different circumstances, could've gone a lot further.

So, so far so good this series; here's hoping it continues in that way! Best of (retrospective) luck to all involved!

Back tomorrow with my usual Monday night quiz write-up; until then, sayonara...