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: 171-114, +50.3 units (Through Round 1)
2023 NCAA Tournament Player Prop Bet Projections: Arkansas vs. Kansas
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Ricky Council | 14.6 | 4.0 | 1.8 | 18.6 | 16.4 | 20.4 | 0.7 | 4.2 |
| Anthony Black | 12.2 | 6.3 | 3.3 | 18.4 | 15.5 | 21.8 | 0.6 | 3.6 |
| Davonte Davis | 10.4 | 5.4 | 2.2 | 15.7 | 12.6 | 18.0 | 1.1 | 1.3 |
| Jordan Walsh | 6.5 | 4.8 | 0.8 | 11.3 | 7.3 | 12.1 | 0.4 | 1.2 |
| Makhi Mitchell | 8.0 | 8.1 | 1.1 | 16.1 | 9.1 | 17.2 | 0.0 | 1.5 |
| Nick Smith | 15.0 | 2.5 | 1.8 | 17.5 | 16.9 | 19.3 | 1.4 | 2.7 |
| Jalen Graham | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Makhel Mitchell | 1.8 | 2.1 | 0.1 | 3.9 | 2.0 | 4.1 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Trevon Brazile | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Joseph Pinion | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Kamani Johnson | 1.0 | 1.7 | 0.1 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2.8 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| Derrian Ford | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Cade Arbogast | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Lawson Blake | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Barry Dunning | 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 |
| Jalen Wilson | 20.3 | 9.1 | 1.9 | 29.3 | 22.1 | 31.2 | 1.4 | 5.4 |
| Gradey Dick | 14.7 | 5.4 | 1.3 | 20.1 | 16.0 | 21.4 | 1.7 | 2.8 |
| KJ Adams | 11.0 | 5.0 | 1.7 | 16.0 | 12.7 | 17.6 | 0.0 | 2.3 |
| Kevin McCullar | 10.4 | 7.4 | 1.8 | 17.8 | 12.2 | 19.6 | 0.6 | 3.2 |
| Dajuan Harris | 8.9 | 2.7 | 5.1 | 11.6 | 14.0 | 16.7 | 0.6 | 1.0 |
| Joseph Yesufu | 3.3 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 4.3 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 0.4 | 0.3 |
| Ernest Udeh | 2.0 | 1.6 | 0.2 | 3.6 | 2.2 | 3.8 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Bobby Pettiford | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 2.5 | 2.4 | 3.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| MJ Rice | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Zuby Ejiofor | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Zach Clemence | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Michael Jankovich | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Cam Martin | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Kyle Cuffe | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Dillon Wilhite | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |