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: Grand Canyon vs. Gonzaga
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Rayshon Harrison | 17.9 | 4.5 | 3.4 | 22.4 | 21.3 | 25.8 | 1.5 | 4.6 |
| Gabe McGlothan | 12.3 | 8.2 | 0.8 | 20.5 | 13.1 | 21.3 | 1.1 | 2.1 |
| Chance McMillian | 11.7 | 3.7 | 2.1 | 15.4 | 13.8 | 17.6 | 2.0 | 1.1 |
| Noah Baumann | 7.0 | 3.6 | 0.6 | 10.5 | 7.6 | 11.1 | 1.7 | 1.1 |
| Josh Baker | 2.8 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 4.1 | 3.9 | 5.1 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| Kobe Knox | 5.8 | 2.0 | 1.2 | 7.8 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 0.9 | 0.8 |
| Walter Ellis | 7.2 | 3.8 | 0.9 | 11.0 | 8.2 | 11.9 | 1.8 | 1.1 |
| Yvan Ouedraogo | 5.2 | 6.4 | 0.4 | 11.6 | 5.6 | 12.0 | 0.0 | 1.3 |
| Jovan Blacksher | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Aidan Igiehon | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Isaiah Shaw | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Logan Landers | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Isaiah Carr | 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 |
| Drew Timme | 20.3 | 7.5 | 2.6 | 27.8 | 22.9 | 30.4 | 0.0 | 4.5 |
| Julian Strawther | 15.0 | 6.2 | 1.1 | 21.2 | 16.1 | 22.3 | 1.8 | 2.9 |
| Anton Watson | 11.7 | 6.3 | 2.0 | 18.0 | 13.7 | 20.0 | 0.3 | 2.0 |
| Rasir Bolton | 9.2 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 11.0 | 11.1 | 12.9 | 1.0 | 1.8 |
| Malachi Smith | 9.0 | 3.9 | 1.3 | 12.9 | 10.2 | 14.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
| Nolan Hickman | 7.9 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 10.4 | 10.5 | 13.0 | 1.1 | 0.7 |
| Ben Gregg | 6.7 | 4.0 | 0.8 | 10.7 | 7.5 | 11.5 | 0.7 | 1.2 |
| Hunter Sallis | 4.5 | 2.3 | 1.2 | 6.8 | 5.7 | 8.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| Efton Reid | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 1.4 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Colby Brooks | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Dominick Harris | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Abe Eagle | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |