A Tale of Two Tag Teams

In the last six years, the illustrious tag team Whiteside and his Enemies has finished 2nd in the tag team competition four times, 1st once, and 3rd once. In the last million-and-six years, it seems The Leach Gang has only avoided finishing last in the competition maybe once or twice. But in this most topsy-turvy of years, in which a former First Lady and a former TV host of The Apprentice are the likely nominees for President of the United States, we guess it only makes sense that Whiteside and his Whitesidekicks have dropped off the map, with an average of 225.40 points, more than 11 points worse than the morally victorious Leaches, in second-to-last place at 236.88.

On the other end, The Donadio Group has won the tag team competition for the second season out of the last three, with an average of 264.67, just edging the present and/or former inhabitants of 12A (263.33). Bunched closely behind the leaders are Friends of DBR (251.33), the Millan-less Millan-sters (250.67), and the Ripley Believe it or Nots (249.0). Lagging behind that bunch but still ahead of the Leach and Whiteside contingents are those associated with Urban Engineers (243.60).

Also wallowing in ignominy is the average Commissioner (216.0), who trails the average pool entrant (241.43) by more than 25 points.

In other ways, however, order remains. Females (254.82), for example, have once again shown their dominance over males (238.80), suggesting that the Y-chromosome is worth approximately negative-16 points. Members of the animal kingdom (255.0) scored significantly better than humans (242.31), who in turn outperformed lawyers (233.0) by a fair margin. Children (249.43) are, on average, sticking their tongues out at their adult counterparts (240.5).

Teachers (267.80) basically took students (251.75) to school. And everyone else as well. The second best pool-picking profession this year was engineering (245.75), followed by the financial disciplines (242.82). If you're an attorney (236.0) or in a technical profession (239.33), you might as well be retired (241.00).

Only four universities were named as a favorite by more than one contestant. Of those Temple (255.50) bested Villanova (248.67), in the contest if not on the court. Running behind those local schools were Duke (246.60) and Penn State (236.56).

From a name standpoint, names that sound like "Kevin" (265.50) outshone names that sound like "Luke" (260.00) or "John" (260.00). Names that end in a "k" sound -- Mike (244.0), Rick (242.50), and Jack/Jake (235.0) -- were at least better than Jeff (232.0), David (231.50), George (226.50), or Matt (220.00).

The best states from which to select this season were New Jersey (264.67) and New York (256.75), a little better than Illinois (248.67) and California (245.00). Pennsylvania (240.33) or Florida (234.50)? Not so much. North of Pennsylvania (256.13) is a better region from which to pick pools than West of Pennsylvania (247.2) or South of Pennsylvania (238.00). Western PA (248.00) beat out Eastern PA (239.6), and Philadelphia suburbs (240.66) stuck up their noses at Philadelphia proper (226.00).

Look out for this year's edition of Rivals, coming soon to a blog near you.