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: Iona vs. UConn
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Daniss Jenkins | 13.3 | 4.0 | 3.2 | 17.3 | 16.5 | 20.4 | 1.0 | 2.9 |
| Walter Clayton | 16.9 | 4.5 | 2.4 | 21.3 | 19.3 | 23.7 | 1.6 | 4.2 |
| Nelly Junior Joseph | 14.4 | 9.4 | 0.8 | 23.8 | 15.2 | 24.6 | 0.0 | 5.1 |
| Berrick JeanLouis | 7.1 | 4.1 | 1.4 | 11.2 | 8.5 | 12.6 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Osborn Shema | 6.9 | 4.8 | 1.2 | 11.7 | 8.1 | 12.9 | 0.5 | 1.1 |
| Cruz Davis | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Anton Brookshire | 4.0 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 5.1 | 4.3 | 5.4 | 0.7 | 0.3 |
| Quinn Slazinski | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Sadiku Ibine Ayo | 1.5 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 2.3 | 1.5 | 2.4 | 0.1 | 0.2 |
| Michael Jefferson | 1.4 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 1.9 | 3.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
| Silas Sunday | 0.7 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 0.8 | 1.7 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Parker Weiss | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| James Carey | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Keither Florence | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Stephen Boateng | 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 |
| Adama Sanogo | 17.0 | 8.4 | 1.3 | 25.4 | 18.3 | 26.7 | 0.4 | 2.7 |
| Jordan Hawkins | 16.2 | 4.6 | 1.4 | 20.9 | 17.6 | 22.3 | 2.3 | 3.4 |
| Tristen Newton | 10.2 | 5.0 | 4.6 | 15.2 | 14.8 | 19.8 | 0.9 | 3.7 |
| Alex Karaban | 9.1 | 4.8 | 1.6 | 13.9 | 10.7 | 15.5 | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| Donovan Clingan | 4.9 | 4.6 | 0.3 | 9.5 | 5.2 | 9.8 | 0.0 | 0.9 |
| Andre Jackson | 7.0 | 7.9 | 4.5 | 14.9 | 11.5 | 19.3 | 0.6 | 1.2 |
| Joey Calcaterra | 5.9 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 8.0 | 7.2 | 9.2 | 1.1 | 0.6 |
| Nahiem Alleyne | 3.9 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.6 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Hassan Diarra | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 2.4 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Richie Springs | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Samson Johnson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Apostolos Roumoglou | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Andrew Hurley | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Yarin Hasson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Emmett Hendry | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Andre Johnson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |