NCAA Tournament Player Prop Bets: Round 1 (Thursday)

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Well folks, we finally made it. The first day of the rest of our lives. The day where we wake up in the morning with nothing but potential, and go to bed with a busted bracket with all our hopes and dreams dashed. It's March Madness time! While I'm sure you have spent countless hours stressing over your bracket, one thing the NCAA Tournament is great for is betting player props. The market is always all over the place with a lot of new teams and unknown schemes that the books have trouble keeping up with. That's why I'm here, to give you my best player props for today's action so even if your bracket is busted, there's still plenty to root for throughout the day. Here are my favorite player props for day one of the Round of 64 action.

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Thursday's Best Prop Bets

(All bets are one unit unless specified otherwise)

Trey Kaufman-Renn Over 22.5 Points (-115 at bet365)

For all you Illinois residents, get on that bet365 promo before it's too late because it's an amazing offer. Then take that amazing offer and run to bet TKR's Over points total for Purdue-High Point. Overall, High Point's defense is not great. It ranks 226th overall in adjusted efficiency and when you go inside the arc, everything gets worse for the Panthers who own the 328th-ranked mid-range and 181st-ranked near-proximity defense. The Boilermakers’ two-man game of Braden Smith and TKR is going to eat High Point alive with their highly efficient pick-and-roll scheme which High Point has struggled to defend all year. The Panthers also defend the post at a 15th percentile rate in the nation, per Synergy, which is exactly where TKR is going to thrive. This game is going to be all offense so I don't expect Purdue to ever let up on the gas pedal. For TKR, who's covered this line in three straight games, he's going to need to be the driving engine for the Boilermakers, and I expect him to cover this line with ease. 

John Tonje Over 21.5 Points (-110 at BetMGM)

My second Over of the day (there will be three of them, I mean come on, it's March) is the Wisconsin do-it-all guard/forward John Tonje going over his scoring prop. This is another situation where the favorite could not have asked for a better schematic matchup. Wisconsin – and Tonje – love to huck up threes whereas Montana allows a 70% open three rate per Shot Quality’s analysis, 336th worse in all of hoops. Tonje will end up with some mismatches against smaller guards, and he's been known to dust such opponents when he gets downhill and to the hoop. After a tough loss and poor offensive outing across the board for Wisconsin, this game screams bounce-back where the team's leading scorer will make a statement in an impressive offensive outing.

Tyler Bilodeau Over 13.5 Points (-118 at FanDuel)

And for the third Over of the day, we have UCLA's leading scorer who should slice and dice Utah State's zone defense. The Aggies are the definition of a paper tiger, with their defense dropping from an already weak 153rd to an alarming 250th when facing top-50 opponents. Utah State's zone will force UCLA into mid-range looks which, while inefficient, the Bruins are quite comfortable taking with the 44th best mid-range shooting percentage as a team in the nation. No Bruin takes a higher percentage of their shots from mid-range than Bilodeau who can add some three-pointers to go with it.

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Ryan Coleman is a featured writer at BettingPros. Follow him on Twitter @ryancoleman_98. For more from Ryan, check out his archive.