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: Maryland vs. Alabama
Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
Jahmir Young | 16.4 | 5.7 | 2.6 | 22.2 | 19.1 | 24.8 | 1.0 | 5.0 |
Hakim Hart | 12.2 | 5.3 | 2.2 | 17.5 | 14.4 | 19.7 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
Donta Scott | 11.0 | 6.7 | 1.3 | 17.8 | 12.3 | 19.1 | 1.0 | 1.7 |
Julian Reese | 12.4 | 9.6 | 0.9 | 22.0 | 13.3 | 22.9 | 0.0 | 2.7 |
Donald Carey | 8.4 | 2.6 | 1.0 | 11.0 | 9.4 | 12.0 | 1.5 | 1.4 |
Ian Martinez | 3.9 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 5.9 | 4.2 | 6.3 | 0.4 | 0.9 |
Patrick Emilien | 2.5 | 3.1 | 0.2 | 5.6 | 2.7 | 5.8 | 0.0 | 1.1 |
Jahari Long | 1.1 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.9 | 0.1 | 0.2 |
Noah Batchelor | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Ike Cornish | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Caelum Swanton-Rodger | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Carson Dick | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Pavlo Dziuba | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Brett Karkus | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Arnaud Revaz | 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 |
Brandon Miller | 17.4 | 7.8 | 1.8 | 25.2 | 19.2 | 27.0 | 2.2 | 3.4 |
Mark Sears | 11.8 | 3.4 | 2.4 | 15.2 | 14.2 | 17.6 | 1.5 | 2.8 |
Noah Clowney | 8.2 | 6.9 | 0.7 | 15.1 | 8.9 | 15.8 | 0.6 | 1.6 |
Jahvon Quinerly | 8.6 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 10.7 | 12.4 | 14.6 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
Jaden Bradley | 5.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 7.2 | 7.3 | 9.4 | 0.1 | 1.6 |
Rylan Griffen | 6.3 | 2.8 | 0.7 | 9.1 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 1.0 | 0.9 |
Charles Bediako | 5.1 | 5.1 | 0.5 | 10.2 | 5.6 | 10.7 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
Noah Gurley | 3.9 | 2.7 | 0.4 | 6.6 | 4.3 | 7.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
Nimari Burnett | 4.3 | 1.6 | 0.6 | 5.9 | 4.9 | 6.5 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
Nick Pringle | 4.8 | 4.6 | 0.3 | 9.3 | 5.1 | 9.7 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
Dominick Welch | 1.0 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 2.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 |
Delaney Heard | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Darius Miles | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Adam Cottrell | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Jaden Quinerly | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Max Scharnowski | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |