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: Furman vs. San Diego State
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Mike Bothwell | 13.6 | 3.1 | 2.2 | 16.7 | 15.8 | 18.9 | 1.1 | 3.5 |
| Jalen Slawson | 13.4 | 7.2 | 2.7 | 20.7 | 16.1 | 23.4 | 1.0 | 3.2 |
| JP Pegues | 10.0 | 3.7 | 3.2 | 13.7 | 13.2 | 16.9 | 1.6 | 1.5 |
| Marcus Foster | 9.6 | 5.5 | 1.0 | 15.1 | 10.6 | 16.1 | 1.6 | 1.5 |
| Garrett Hien | 6.8 | 4.1 | 1.4 | 10.9 | 8.2 | 12.3 | 0.7 | 0.7 |
| Ben VanderWal | 4.2 | 3.1 | 0.3 | 7.3 | 4.5 | 7.7 | 0.4 | 1.2 |
| Alex Williams | 5.4 | 3.0 | 0.5 | 8.4 | 5.9 | 9.0 | 0.9 | 0.6 |
| Tyrese Hughey | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 2.2 | 1.6 | 2.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Carter Whitt | 1.5 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 3.9 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| Joe Anderson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jonny Lawrence | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Rett Lister | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Blake Harris | 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 |
| Matt Bradley | 12.5 | 3.8 | 1.8 | 16.3 | 14.2 | 18.1 | 1.4 | 2.0 |
| Darrion Trammell | 9.0 | 2.1 | 2.8 | 11.1 | 11.8 | 13.9 | 1.1 | 2.0 |
| Lamont Butler | 9.2 | 2.9 | 3.1 | 12.1 | 12.3 | 15.2 | 1.0 | 1.3 |
| Jaedon Ledee | 8.7 | 5.9 | 1.0 | 14.6 | 9.7 | 15.6 | 0.0 | 2.7 |
| Keshad Johnson | 8.2 | 5.7 | 0.6 | 14.0 | 8.8 | 14.5 | 0.3 | 1.4 |
| Micah Parrish | 8.4 | 3.9 | 0.6 | 12.3 | 9.0 | 12.9 | 1.3 | 1.5 |
| Nathan Mensah | 5.0 | 4.9 | 0.4 | 9.9 | 5.4 | 10.4 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Adam Seiko | 5.6 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 6.9 | 6.2 | 7.5 | 1.4 | 0.6 |
| Aguek Arop | 4.8 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 7.9 | 5.5 | 8.7 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
| Miles Byrd | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Elijah Saunders | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Demarshay Johnson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Cade Alger | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jared Barnett | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Triston Broughton | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Tyler Broughton | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |