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: Northwestern vs. UCLA
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Boo Buie | 15.4 | 3.5 | 4.1 | 18.9 | 19.5 | 23.0 | 1.7 | 3.0 |
| Chase Audige | 12.9 | 3.7 | 2.6 | 16.6 | 15.5 | 19.2 | 1.8 | 1.9 |
| Ty Berry | 8.2 | 5.3 | 1.1 | 13.5 | 9.3 | 14.6 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Robbie Beran | 5.1 | 3.6 | 0.4 | 8.7 | 5.5 | 9.1 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| Brooks Barnhizer | 8.4 | 6.3 | 1.2 | 14.6 | 9.6 | 15.8 | 0.9 | 1.7 |
| Matthew Nicholson | 5.0 | 5.3 | 1.1 | 10.3 | 6.1 | 11.4 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
| Tydus Verhoeven | 2.1 | 2.6 | 0.6 | 4.7 | 2.6 | 5.2 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Julian Roper II | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Nick Martinelli | 2.5 | 1.6 | 0.3 | 4.1 | 2.8 | 4.4 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| Luke Hunger | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Roy Dixon | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Blake Smith | 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 |
| Jaime Jaquez | 18.7 | 10.8 | 2.6 | 29.5 | 21.3 | 32.1 | 1.0 | 3.4 |
| Tyger Campbell | 14.4 | 3.4 | 5.1 | 17.8 | 19.5 | 22.8 | 1.6 | 2.8 |
| Jaylen Clark | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| David Singleton | 11.0 | 4.0 | 1.3 | 15.0 | 12.3 | 16.3 | 2.5 | 1.7 |
| Amari Bailey | 12.8 | 5.6 | 2.4 | 18.4 | 15.2 | 20.8 | 0.8 | 1.7 |
| Adem Bona | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Dylan Andrews | 4.2 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 5.9 | 5.5 | 7.2 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Kenneth Nwuba | 2.1 | 3.9 | 0.7 | 6.0 | 2.8 | 6.7 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Mac Etienne | 1.7 | 4.4 | 0.4 | 6.2 | 2.1 | 6.5 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Abramo Canka | 0.7 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Will McClendon | 1.3 | 1.8 | 1.1 | 3.1 | 2.3 | 4.1 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Russell Stong | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Evan Manjikian | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Logan Cremonesi | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |