The 2025 NCAA Tournament tips off on Thursday morning with 16 first-round games, with another 16 first-round games set for Friday.
Wednesday evening on the Action Network YouTube channel, experts Sean Koerner and Nick Giffen gave out their favorite player props for the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Here are our NCAA Tournament player props picks.
Nick Giffen: Creighton launches 3s at the 10th highest rate and is terrible on the offensive glass (250th in adj OR%).
Duke launches 3s at the 51st highest rate and James Scott had 10 rebounds total in his two games against Duke while averaging 29 minutes per game, which is right about what we’re projecting for minutes. However, Duke is 15th in OR% and a better shooting team than Creighton.
Creighton also fouls at the lowest rate and is bottom-five in turnover rate forced, meaning more offensive possessions will end in field goal attempts.
You can ladder this if you want. I’ll sprinkle 7+ at +200 at bet365 and 8+ at +320 at DraftKings, which we have closer to a coinflip.
Nick Giffen: Creighton presents a stylistic nightmare for Hepburn, who relies on 30% of his scoring output to come at the free-throw line. Creighton allows the lowest free-throw rate in all of college basketball.
In addition, Hepburn is a 3-and-drive guy, which is exactly what Crieghton’s Kalk Drop is designed to eliminate (rim and 3-point shots). That will result in more midrange jumpers, which may funnel scoring to J’Vonne Hadley or Terrence Edwards.
I don’t think our projections are fully capturing that impact on Hepburn. We’re projecting a median of 15.5, but I think it should be even lower.
Hepburn had 14 and 8 against Duke, who allows a similarly low free-throw rate and forces teams to shoot field goals inside a bit more (not as much as Creighton).
Sean Koerner: Kezza Giffa averages 2.5 assists per game, but he' stayed under 2.5 63% of the time.
High Point averages 83 points per game. Their implied team total here against Purdue is around 73, so 10 points lower than their season average.
In the 13 games where High Point has scored less than 80 points, Giffa is averaging 2.1 assists and stayed under 2.5 in nine of those 13 games (69%).
He’s their leading scorer and I think he should be able to attack Purdue inside here, which could lead to him dishing it to his teammates at a lower rate.
I'm projecting him closer to 2.2 assists with around a 62% chance to stay under.
Sean Koerner: I was on LJ Cryer’s under 2.5 in his last game against Arizona. He had two at halftime and zero the rest of the way, and both rebounds were pretty fluky. One went like 50 feet into the air and he happened to be the one who ended up with it. Another was a ball that slipped out and Cryer happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Most of the time, he’s nowhere near a potential rebound. He’s stayed under 2.5 61% of the time this season.
Houston is nearly 30 point favorites so this should be a blowout against SIUE. We could see Cryer play fewer minutes as a result.
In the 12 games where Houston has won by 20+ points, Cryer has averaged 27 minutes, 1.6 rebounds, and stayed under 2.5 83% of the time.
I'm projecting him closer to 2.2 rebounds and around a 62% chance to stay under.
Sean Koerner: Game log truthers will probably see that DJ Richards Jr. cleared this in four straight games and be on his over here.
However, McNeese has allowed just a 42% effective FG rate over that stretch, the fourth0lowest rate in the country. So there have been way more potential rebounds to go around than usual for them.
Here they're facing Clemson in a big jump up in terms of competition. They are a top-25 offense, good shooting team, and good rebounding team.
Richards didn’t become a starter until 22 games ago. Over that stretch he’s averaged 2.4 reb, staying under 2.5 64% of the time.
I'm projecting him closer to 2.1 with around a 65% chance to stay under 2.5.
Nick Giffen: In six games vs teams outside top 100 (adj for location) Mark Sears averaged 2.7 rebounds per game, with his highest output being five (once) and his lowest output being zero.
Robert Morris is actually a good rebounding team, ranking 62nd in schedule adjusted reb rate.
Robert Morris also turns the ball over a lot and draws fouls at a high rate, so more defensive possessions for Sears will end without a field-goal attempt, which hurts him extra because he basically only grabs boards on the defensive end (just 1.5% OR%).
If you can find an under 3.5 at plus money, take it. I'm projecting him at 3.5 with a 72.5% chance to stay under 4.5. So while -160 is juicy, we have this more like -260 as fair.
