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: 159-114, +40.39 units (Through Thursday Round 1)
2023 NCAA Tournament Player Prop Bet Projections: Xavier vs. Kennesaw State
| Player | PTs | REBs | ASTs | PTs + REBs | PTs + ASTs | PRAs | 3Ps | FTs |
| Souley Boum | 18.0 | 4.9 | 4.1 | 22.9 | 22.1 | 27.0 | 2.4 | 4.6 |
| Colby Jones | 17.2 | 6.4 | 4.1 | 23.5 | 21.3 | 27.7 | 1.4 | 2.7 |
| Jack Nunge | 15.4 | 8.8 | 1.9 | 24.1 | 17.3 | 26.1 | 1.2 | 2.6 |
| Adam Kunkel | 12.2 | 3.3 | 3.0 | 15.5 | 15.2 | 18.5 | 2.1 | 1.3 |
| Zach Freemantle | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Jerome Hunter | 11.0 | 6.8 | 1.7 | 17.9 | 12.7 | 19.6 | 0.0 | 2.1 |
| Desmond Claude | 6.1 | 3.4 | 2.1 | 9.5 | 8.2 | 11.6 | 0.5 | 0.9 |
| Kyky Tandy | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Cesare Edwards | 3.4 | 2.9 | 0.3 | 6.3 | 3.7 | 6.6 | 0.0 | 0.5 |
| Kam Craft | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Dieonte Miles | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Elijah Tucker | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Bradley Colbert | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Bob Nunge | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Ian Sabourin | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Michael Wolf | 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 |
| Chris Youngblood | 15.1 | 5.4 | 2.1 | 20.4 | 17.1 | 22.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 |
| Terrell Burden | 13.8 | 3.5 | 4.6 | 17.3 | 18.4 | 21.9 | 0.8 | 3.2 |
| Demond Robinson | 11.0 | 6.3 | 0.9 | 17.3 | 11.9 | 18.2 | 0.0 | 2.2 |
| Brandon Stroud | 9.6 | 7.3 | 1.8 | 16.9 | 11.4 | 18.7 | 1.2 | 1.5 |
| Spencer Rodgers | 5.5 | 3.1 | 2.0 | 8.6 | 7.5 | 10.6 | 1.3 | 0.5 |
| Kasen Jennings | 5.2 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 6.8 | 6.7 | 8.2 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| Quincy Ademokoya | 3.3 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 4.5 | 3.7 | 4.9 | 0.8 | 0.3 |
| Alex Peterson | 4.7 | 3.2 | 0.8 | 7.9 | 5.5 | 8.7 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
| Simeon Cottle | 2.6 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 3.9 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| Cole LaRue | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Ahmad Johnson | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Yves Nkomba | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Armani Harris | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Matt Brown | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Charle Stone | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Eric Holland | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |