We did some follow-up research on the "Contrarian Bridgejumping" handicapping method during the pre-season, so if you missed that, read this first:
Please note that our follow-up research on the CSM plays revealed that while they were reasonably good overall during the 1983-2000 span we looked at, they had not done as well in the past four years, and as such we do NOT recommend playing them without other evidence in 2001. Still, the stats are interesting in themselves and we will continue to provide the raw data.
Calculating the "Cumulative Spread Margin" stats involves totaling up how a team has performed in terms of net points against the lines on their games. For instance a team that won by eight while favored by three would accrue +5 points of CSM for the effort. On the other hand a team that lost by eight while favored by three would get a -11 CSM for that game.
We will also be following each team's CSM versus the over/under lines (perhaps this should be Cumulative Totals Margin -- "CTM") which are calculated in a similar fashion: if a team plays a game in which the scoring by both teams was 48 points and the over/under line was 43 this would count as a +5 CTM game for both teams.
Preliminary investigation of making totals plays using the same philosophy with the CTM numbers as the CSM has not however shown promise.
Historic results for the CSM 6+ difference plays in week seven games is 58-45 (56.3%), but over the last 4 years 11-13 (45.8%).
