March Madness is here, which means it’s time for me to dust off the ol’ player projection model, forecast the playing time for hundreds of players I’ve never heard of and place a psychologically unhealthy number of prop bets for the next three weeks.
I’ll be honest: I don’t follow college basketball. I like the sport in theory, but in actuality I don’t take the time to watch it. That has been the case for years.
Even so, in 2019 I pulled together a “model” (set of spreadsheets) to project player production for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and since then I’ve used this model (and updated versions of it) to bet profitably in the player prop market.
- 2019: 125-69-12, +39.8 units
- 2021: 106-64-1, +33.8 units
- 2022: 243-210, +14.9 units
- 2023: 89-67, +19.4 units (Through Thursday Round 1)
2023 NCAA Tournament Player Prop Bet Projections: Arizona State vs. TCU
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Desmond Cambridge | 14.3 | 4.2 | 2.8 | 18.5 | 17.1 | 21.3 | 2.2 | 1.7 |
| DJ Horne | 13.0 | 4.1 | 2.8 | 17.1 | 15.8 | 19.9 | 1.8 | 2.2 |
| Devan Cambridge | 9.5 | 6.0 | 0.9 | 15.5 | 10.4 | 16.4 | 0.7 | 1.8 |
| Frankie Collins | 7.3 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 10.9 | 11.0 | 14.6 | 0.5 | 1.8 |
| Warren Washington | 9.1 | 7.7 | 1.7 | 16.8 | 10.8 | 18.6 | 0.0 | 2.1 |
| Jamiya Neal | 6.0 | 4.0 | 2.1 | 10.0 | 8.1 | 12.1 | 0.6 | 0.9 |
| Austin Nunez | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Luther Muhammad | 4.5 | 1.5 | 0.6 | 5.9 | 5.0 | 6.5 | 0.3 | 0.8 |
| Alonzo Gaffney | 3.1 | 3.2 | 0.7 | 6.3 | 3.8 | 7.1 | 0.3 | 0.5 |
| Duke Brennan | 1.7 | 1.9 | 0.1 | 3.6 | 1.8 | 3.8 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
| Marcus Bagley | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Enoch Boakye | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Bobby Hurley | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Micah Burno | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| John Olmsted | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Cade Ronzone | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Austin Ronzone | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jordan Williams | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Mike Miles | 17.7 | 3.9 | 2.8 | 21.5 | 20.4 | 24.3 | 1.4 | 4.8 |
| Emanuel Miller | 12.7 | 9.2 | 1.9 | 21.8 | 14.5 | 23.7 | 0.7 | 1.4 |
| Damion Baugh | 11.6 | 5.8 | 5.6 | 17.3 | 17.1 | 22.9 | 0.8 | 2.9 |
| JaKobe Coles | 9.0 | 5.6 | 1.3 | 14.6 | 10.3 | 15.9 | 0.7 | 1.9 |
| Chuck O’Bannon | 7.1 | 4.3 | 1.0 | 11.5 | 8.1 | 12.4 | 1.1 | 1.6 |
| Shahada Wells | 4.4 | 2.2 | 1.8 | 6.6 | 6.3 | 8.5 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| Micah Peavy | 5.7 | 3.4 | 1.0 | 9.1 | 6.7 | 10.1 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| Eddie Lampkin | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Xavier Cork | 3.9 | 3.0 | 0.4 | 6.8 | 4.3 | 7.2 | 0.0 | 0.9 |
| Rondel Walker | 1.1 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 2.7 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| PJ Haggerty | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Souleymane Doumbia | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Cole Despie | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Tyler Lundblade | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Darius Ford | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Zach Gonsoulin | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Trey Stuart | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |