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: Montana State vs. Kansas State
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Raequan Battle | 17.9 | 3.5 | 1.0 | 21.4 | 18.9 | 22.4 | 1.6 | 4.0 |
| Jubrile Belo | 12.5 | 7.0 | 0.9 | 19.5 | 13.4 | 20.4 | 0.0 | 4.8 |
| Great Osobor | 8.4 | 4.5 | 0.8 | 12.9 | 9.2 | 13.7 | 0.0 | 2.9 |
| Darius Brown | 10.0 | 5.9 | 5.3 | 16.0 | 15.3 | 21.3 | 0.9 | 2.7 |
| Caleb Fuller | 8.0 | 4.7 | 1.3 | 12.7 | 9.3 | 13.9 | 0.6 | 2.4 |
| Tyler Patterson | 3.6 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 4.6 | 3.9 | 5.0 | 1.1 | 0.1 |
| Robert Ford | 4.6 | 4.0 | 1.9 | 8.6 | 6.5 | 10.5 | 0.7 | 1.7 |
| Sam Lecholat | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Patrick McMahon | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Nick Gazelas | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| Jed Miller | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Alex Germer | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Luca Colceag | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Carter Ash | 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 |
| Keyontae Johnson | 19.2 | 7.9 | 1.6 | 27.2 | 20.9 | 28.8 | 1.3 | 3.8 |
| Markquis Nowell | 17.1 | 3.7 | 5.3 | 20.7 | 22.4 | 26.0 | 2.1 | 5.6 |
| Nae’Qwan Tomlin | 8.4 | 5.1 | 0.7 | 13.6 | 9.1 | 14.3 | 0.4 | 1.6 |
| Desi Sills | 9.5 | 4.1 | 1.8 | 13.6 | 11.3 | 15.4 | 0.5 | 2.9 |
| Camryn Carter | 6.4 | 3.1 | 1.1 | 9.5 | 7.5 | 10.6 | 0.8 | 0.9 |
| David N’Guessan | 3.8 | 2.3 | 0.3 | 6.1 | 4.1 | 6.5 | 0.1 | 0.7 |
| Ismael Massoud | 5.2 | 1.8 | 0.3 | 7.0 | 5.5 | 7.4 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| Abayomi Iyiola | 1.8 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 3.3 | 1.9 | 3.4 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
| Tykei Greene | 2.0 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 3.5 | 2.2 | 3.7 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Dorian Finister | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Nate Awbrey | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |