Durham vs Strathclyde
Bit of a biased review today as a History graduate from Durham I always like to see them do well.
Line ups -
Durham
Phillip Ferry
Katie Vokes
Richard Thomas
Dominic Everett Riley
Strathclyde
Michael Dorozenko
Juliette Hyslop
Mark Nealon
Bruce Wareham
Like most fans of University Challenge, I prefer episodes which are closely fought contestants. It became clear after around 7 minutes of this weeks show that this was not going to be the case. Durham carried out a whitewash to move into the second round! I am pleased for Durham of course but would have much preferred a closer battle.
Everett Riley started the ball rolling with various buzzes and before long the lead was 80 to minus 5. This continued to grow as Vokes started to come into the game and Richard Thomas lead the team well. Sadly, Strathclyde were mere observers and for most of this show their only contribution was a wrong buzz.
The lead grew and grew and it was getting to be a hard watch as I felt sorry for Strathclyde. They never got a real chance to prove their knowledge so it was hard to say whether this was the fact that Durham were too good, or Strathclyde were poor. Either way Durham were bagging pretty much every buzz!
As it got to 155-10 Wareham finally buzzed for Strathclyde and they got a score. It started a mini landslide of points as Doroszenko managed his own hat trick of buzzes to take the score to a final 245-70!
Durham therefore move into the next round. It will be interesting to see how they perform under pressure as for much of this match they were at ease answering the questions.
Hi Daniel
ReplyDeleteFirst round form can be a little unreliable as a guide to a team´s potential. There are several reasons why a team might have a score which is higher than their usual, or lower than their usual performance : a set of questions that just doesn´t or particularly does suit. particularly strong or particularly weak opposition to name but two. So we have to bear in mind this caveat before making pronouncements on the relative strengths of our three heat winners thus far. Having said that, though, I have to say that in my opinion this Durham team seem quite a bit stronger than the other two teams who have made it through to the second round so far. This is just my opinion, and of course everyone can feel free to disagree. But when I´m assessing the strength of a UC team, I don´t just look at the final score, and I don´t just look at the questions they answered correctly. I also think about the questions they answer incorrectly, because these will tell you where a team´s subject gaps are, if any. Teams that have a wider knowledge base tend to do better than teams who may have deep subject knowledge in several areas, but not a great deal at all iin others. Durham loook the most complete team of the three winners so far. Their bonus conversion rate is considerably the best of the three shows we´ve seen. This is not to say that I wish to burden them with the Clark tip at this stage, though - but they´re a good team who could do well.
I think it's more that Durham were particularly good than Strathclyde particularly bad. The final ten minutes showed that the Strathclyde team were pretty knowledgeable, especially Doroszenko. They just didn't have a chance for most of the game. The Durham team appeared exceptionally good, I look forward to seeing them in the next round.
ReplyDeleteWas the girl on Strathclyde's side definitely Juliette Hyslop? The subtitles said Julia Hyslop. It also sounded more like Julia to me.