In 1951, City College of New York (CCNY), New York University (NYU), and Long Island University (LIU) were on top of the college basketball world. CCNY had recently won both the NCCA National Championship and the even more prestigious National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in the same year; a feat never equaled. Other New York City schools were considered the cream of college basketball and destinations for the best players in the country.
Then, the bottom dropped out due to a scandal that very nearly destroyed college basketball. Several players from all New York City schools were indicted for crimes related to point shaving and throwing games. Other schools caught up in the scandal included the University of Toledo, Bradley University, and Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats. Rupp, the winningest coach in college basketball history to that point, claimed that gamblers "couldn't touch [our] students with a ten-foot pole." Three former players admitted to fixing games.
This ugly history is repeating itself. According to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, as ESPN reported, "Twenty men have been charged in a point-shaving scheme involving 39 college basketball players on 17 NCAA Division I teams, leading to 29 games being fixed."
Anyone who has seen the rise of legalized sports betting, how both professional teams and colleges have embraced the billion-dollar companies making bets on games, and the ease with which players, coaches, and officials can be sucked into these gambling rings, is not surprised by this latest scandal at all.
Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, two men who were indicted in a federal district in New York in October, worked with Blakeney and a number of others to manipulate college basketball games during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, according to an indictment brought by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Prosecutors said Hennen and Fairley worked with others to recruit college players with bribes and then asked them to help fix games so their teams would not cover the spread — the number of points by which a sportsbook predicted a team would lose its game. The players, prosecutors say, were offered between $10,000 to $30,000 for each game to be a part of their gambling ring.
"This was a massive scheme that enveloped the world of college basketball," U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said in a news conference. "This was a significant and rampant corruption of college athletics."
Sickening.
I stopped watching college ball when players began to play only one year before jumping to the pros. I stopped watching the pros when they began to sign 17-year-old kids.
Basketball used to be exciting to watch. Even the pro game was fun when Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and then Michael Jordan led the golden era of the NBA. And the college game was always intensely competitive.
But what are people to think now? When a player misses a shot or doesn't cover his opponent very well, are we going to be thinking, is he point shaving? Is he tanking in order to deliberately lose the game?
The scheme was alleged to be far-ranging, including players on DePaul, Nicholls State, Tulane, La Salle, Fordham, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, Buffalo, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Coppin State, University of New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Alabama State and Kennesaw State. At least three of the players charged Thursday are active college basketball players: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart, Delaware State’s Camian Shell and Texas Southern’s Oumar Koureissi.
Sports betting is too easy. Back in the day, you could only bet in Nevada and had to be physically present to bet legally. Now, you can just whip out your phone and bet whether some kicker is going to choke. In fact, you could bet on any outcome of any play at any time. It's madness that is going to kill all sports in the U.S.
Someone should get in the ear of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred and tell them that history is on line one.
And she hates being put on hold.
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