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: Penn State vs. Texas
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Jalen Pickett | 17.4 | 8.6 | 5.9 | 25.9 | 23.3 | 31.8 | 1.2 | 2.7 |
| Seth Lundy | 14.1 | 7.4 | 0.8 | 21.5 | 14.9 | 22.3 | 2.4 | 2.8 |
| Andrew Funk | 11.5 | 3.4 | 0.9 | 14.9 | 12.5 | 15.8 | 2.6 | 1.1 |
| Camren Wynter | 9.0 | 3.5 | 1.8 | 12.5 | 10.9 | 14.4 | 1.0 | 1.3 |
| Myles Dread | 4.8 | 2.2 | 0.7 | 6.9 | 5.5 | 7.6 | 1.3 | 0.2 |
| Kebba Njie | 3.5 | 4.4 | 0.5 | 7.8 | 3.9 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 0.7 |
| Kanye Clary | 3.9 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.6 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
| Evan Mahaffey | 1.1 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Michael Henn | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 2.5 | 1.9 | 2.8 | 0.3 | 0.1 |
| Dallion Johnson | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Caleb Dorsey | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jameel Brown | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Demetrius Lilley | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Andy Christos | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Dan Conlan | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Ishaan Jagiasi | 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 |
| Marcus Carr | 16.0 | 3.7 | 4.6 | 19.7 | 20.6 | 24.3 | 2.1 | 2.5 |
| Sir’Jabari Rice | 15.1 | 5.2 | 2.8 | 20.3 | 17.9 | 23.1 | 1.8 | 3.1 |
| Tyrese Hunter | 10.5 | 3.6 | 2.9 | 14.1 | 13.4 | 17.0 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Timmy Allen | 6.9 | 4.3 | 2.6 | 11.2 | 9.5 | 13.8 | 0.0 | 1.4 |
| Dylan Disu | 8.0 | 4.8 | 1.1 | 12.7 | 9.1 | 13.9 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Christian Bishop | 5.5 | 3.8 | 0.9 | 9.3 | 6.4 | 10.2 | 0.0 | 0.9 |
| Arterio Morris | 2.6 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 3.6 | 3.0 | 3.9 | 0.4 | 0.3 |
| Brock Cunningham | 4.8 | 4.1 | 1.5 | 8.9 | 6.3 | 10.4 | 0.7 | 0.6 |
| Dillon Mitchell | 3.1 | 3.3 | 0.3 | 6.4 | 3.4 | 6.7 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Alex Anamekwe | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Cole Bott | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Gavin Perryman | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |