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: Princeton vs. Missouri
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Tosan Evbuomwan | 17.4 | 8.5 | 5.8 | 25.9 | 23.1 | 31.7 | 0.4 | 4.3 |
| Ryan Langborg | 12.1 | 3.6 | 1.7 | 15.7 | 13.7 | 17.4 | 2.4 | 2.6 |
| Matt Allocco | 12.6 | 6.7 | 2.4 | 19.3 | 15.0 | 21.7 | 2.1 | 2.3 |
| Caden Pierce | 9.9 | 10.1 | 1.5 | 20.0 | 11.4 | 21.5 | 1.8 | 1.7 |
| Keeshawn Kellman | 8.4 | 5.7 | 0.6 | 14.0 | 9.0 | 14.7 | 0.0 | 1.8 |
| Blake Peters | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 3.2 | 2.5 | 3.4 | 0.8 | 0.2 |
| Xaivian Lee | 2.7 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 4.5 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| Deven Austin | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Zach Martini | 6.1 | 4.7 | 0.8 | 10.8 | 7.0 | 11.6 | 1.9 | 0.5 |
| Jack Scott | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jacob O’Connell | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Konrad Kiszka | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Philip Byriel | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Vernon Collins | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Leyi Adebayo | 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 |
| Kobe Brown | 17.7 | 7.7 | 2.5 | 25.4 | 20.2 | 27.9 | 1.4 | 3.1 |
| D’Moi Hodge | 16.6 | 4.6 | 1.7 | 21.3 | 18.3 | 22.9 | 2.8 | 1.8 |
| DeAndre Gholston | 12.9 | 3.1 | 1.9 | 15.9 | 14.8 | 17.9 | 1.0 | 2.8 |
| Noah Carter | 12.2 | 5.6 | 2.0 | 17.8 | 14.3 | 19.8 | 1.2 | 1.8 |
| Nick Honor | 7.4 | 1.6 | 2.4 | 9.0 | 9.8 | 11.5 | 1.3 | 1.2 |
| Sean East | 7.3 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 9.5 | 9.7 | 11.9 | 0.4 | 1.3 |
| Isiaih Mosley | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Tre Gomillion | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 2.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Aidan Shaw | 1.2 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 2.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Mohamed Diarra | 1.6 | 1.7 | 0.2 | 3.3 | 1.8 | 3.5 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
| Ronnie Degray | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Kaleb Brown | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Ben Sternberg | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Mabor Majak | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jackson Francois | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |