Thursday 14 April 2016

University Challenge 2015-16: Grand Final Preview

OK, so, we've reached another UC grand final. After an interesting series, with plenty of twists, turns, controversy and some brilliant matches in the QFs, we have our two finalist teams:
Peterhouse Cambridge: Thomas Langley, Oscar Powell, Hannah Woods and Julian Sutcliffe.
and
St John's College Oxford: Alex Harries, Charlie Clegg, Angus Russell and Dan Sowood.

And how did they get this far?

Peterhouse narrowly defeated Glasgow in the first match of the series back in July, before comfortably trouncing St George's of London in the second round. Their QF victories over York and St John's (more on that later) must go down as two of the best UCs of recent years, while their second win over York in the semis saw them recover from a poor start to sneak ahead late on.

St John's had a somewhat easier route to the QFs, easily beating Bristol and Queen's of Belfast in the first two rounds. They survived a mightily close scare to beat St Catharine's in their first QF, and made up for the afore-mentioned narrow loss to Peterhouse by comfortably beating Newcastle to reach the semis, where they trounced Liverpool.

A quick look at points acquired so far shows that St John's, who have played one match more, have tallied 1,165 points over six games so far, while Peterhouse have managed 905 over five. That's pretty low for an undefeated grand finalist team, and it's worth noting that Imperial, who played the same number of matches as they have so far, racked up 140 more.

The average scores make this look a bit more even: Peterhouse have averaged 181 points a match, and St John's 194.17 points a match.

And in terms of points conceded, Peterhouse have conceded, on average, 132 per match, while St John's have averagely conceded 134.17 per match. Considering St John's have an extra game and a loss going into that score, that's not a bad difference.

So, for the second series running, the raw stats don't provide much in the way of a reasonable guess at who will win the series. So, all we have to go on is their performances so far.

Peterhouse may be undefeated, but only one of their victories has been by a comfortable margin. Their victories in the QFs and SF were both close run things. St John's have only been run close twice, once in the Peterhouse defeat, and again by St Catharine's in their prior match. It's also worth noting that they nearly let a 75-point lead slip in that game, with St Catharine's only running close to them late on.

Peterhouse have also not yet broken 200 this series, while St John's have done so twice.

However, you can't ignore the fact that reaching the final undefeated under this new QF format is no mean feat, and that, for the past two years, the grand champions have done so. (This may not sound that surprising, but bear in mind that the QF format was in its fifth series when Trinity went undefeated) Also, as Paxo once said to, ironically, a previous Peterhouse team who had won a match by a very small margin: "You did it, just! But it's good enough!"

On the other hand, however, previous form is never a reliable guide to what will happen in a future UC match. Last year, Magdalen had a more impressive run-in to the final than Caius, yet the Cambridge side romped home very easily. And three years ago, despite U.C.L. looking by far the better team across the series, it was Manchester who took the title.

And, for that reason, for the third year in a row, I cannot call how this match is going to go. Both teams have done magnificently to get this far, especially considering the high standard of teams in the QFs this series, and whoever wins will deserve the title.

We haven't had a truly close grand final for some years now; maybe this series will be the one that gives us one. Whatever the case, best of retrospective luck to both teams for Monday! I'll be back then with my usual summary.

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