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: 159-114, +40.39 units (Through Thursday Round 1)
2023 NCAA Tournament Player Prop Bet Projections: Creighton vs. NC State
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Ryan Kalkbrenner | 16.6 | 7.2 | 1.2 | 23.7 | 17.8 | 24.9 | 0.2 | 3.2 |
| Trey Alexander | 14.1 | 4.7 | 2.4 | 18.8 | 16.5 | 21.2 | 1.7 | 3.0 |
| Baylor Scheierman | 13.3 | 9.5 | 2.9 | 22.7 | 16.2 | 25.7 | 2.1 | 1.9 |
| Arthur Kaluma | 11.8 | 6.4 | 1.4 | 18.2 | 13.2 | 19.6 | 1.0 | 2.8 |
| Ryan Nembhard | 13.0 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 17.8 | 17.7 | 22.5 | 1.4 | 2.1 |
| Fredrick King | 1.9 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 3.3 | 1.9 | 3.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Francisco Farabello | 2.8 | 1.3 | 0.8 | 4.1 | 3.6 | 4.8 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| Mason Miller | 2.3 | 1.7 | 0.2 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 4.2 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| Shereef Mitchell | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Ben Shtolzberg | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Zander Yates | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Sami Osmani | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Evan Young | 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 |
| Terquavion Smith | 16.1 | 4.0 | 3.9 | 20.1 | 20.0 | 24.0 | 2.2 | 1.9 |
| Jarkel Joiner | 16.5 | 5.5 | 3.6 | 22.0 | 20.0 | 25.6 | 1.6 | 2.3 |
| D.J. Burns | 11.6 | 5.3 | 1.4 | 16.9 | 13.0 | 18.3 | 0.0 | 0.9 |
| Casey Morsell | 11.4 | 5.0 | 0.9 | 16.4 | 12.3 | 17.3 | 2.0 | 0.8 |
| Jack Clark | 7.7 | 6.7 | 1.3 | 14.4 | 9.0 | 15.7 | 0.9 | 0.6 |
| Ernest Ross | 3.1 | 2.7 | 0.2 | 5.8 | 3.3 | 6.0 | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| Dusan Mahorcic | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| LJ Thomas | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Ebenezer Dowuona | 3.0 | 4.1 | 0.1 | 7.1 | 3.1 | 7.2 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Breon Pass | 1.7 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 2.8 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| Greg Gantt | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jordan Snell | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Chase Graham | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| KJ Keatts | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Alex Nunnally | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |