The NCAA announced a new wave of infractions rulings related to impermissible gambling on men’s college basketball Friday, citing six former players at three different schools—New Orleans, Mississippi Valley State and Arizona State—in what it termed “separate schemes” with “similar conduct.”
The three former New Orleans players were Cedquavious Hunter, Dyquavian Short and Jamond Vincent. Gambling compliance monitoring services noted suspicious wagering on five Privateers games last season—against McNeese State, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Southeastern Louisiana, Incarnate Word and East Texas A&M. New Orleans was 1–4 in those games, beating only East Texas A&M.
According to the infractions report, New Orleans also received a tip from another player on the team about the players attempting to fix a game. “Specifically, a New Orleans men’s basketball student-athlete reported overhearing a conversation between Hunter, Short and Vincent regarding a third-party placing a bet for them on New Orleans’s Dec. 28, 2024, game versus McNeese State using a sports betting app. The conversation took place in the locker room in the days before the game. ‘Student-Athlete 1’ also reported that during a timeout near the end of the game, Short instructed him not to score any more points. The institution suspended Hunter, Short and Vincent for the remainder of the season while it conducted its investigation.”
The report says Vincent “texted three third parties with instructions to bet on the McNeese State game because he and his teammates planned to ‘throw the game’ based on the 24-point spread.” McNeese won the game by 25. Hunter, Short and Vincent played a combined 74 minutes and scored 11 points, fewer than half their combined scoring averages for the season.
Another unnamed New Orleans player told the NCAA that “after the McNeese State game, Hunter and Short met with someone to pick up cash at an unknown location approximately 45 minutes outside of New Orleans. This scheme repeated in connection with the following New Orleans games: Vanderbilt University, A&M Corpus Christi, Southeastern La., East Texas A&M, Northwestern State and Incarnate Word.”
In the Mississippi Valley case, players Donovan Sanders and Alvin Stredic were found to have committed Level I violations. According to the infractions report, Sanders discussed “throwing the game” against Tulsa last December on the phone, according to an unnamed teammate. The report says, “Sanders asked ‘Student-Athlete 1’ to get on the phone with the unknown individual because the individual wanted to know that Sanders had another teammate who would participate in the scheme, as the unknown individual was placing a bet.” Gambling compliance monitoring services also found unusual wagering on Mississippi Valley’s game against Alabama A&M on Jan. 6.
The monitoring service found wagering that “was 3.6 times higher than the average betting handle of Southwest Athletic Conference games.”
The Arizona State case is different. According to the infractions report, BJ Freeman instructed his then-girlfriend to place bets on his performance, but told her to wager on the “overs” on his statistical totals. Freeman also provided information to former Fresno State player Mykell Robinson, who was wagering on Freeman’s performances via daily fantasy accounts.
Among the bets Freeman discussed with Robinson is one related to underperforming. From the NCAA report: “On Dec. 14, 2024, prior to Arizona State men’s basketball game against the University of Florida [Florida], Freeman provided information to Robinson to bet on Freeman’s turnover totals [over-line] while discussing different performance options for daily fantasy sports prop bets.” Freeman committed just one turnover in the game, but also played only 18 minutes—a season-low to that point, as was his three points on 1-for-8 shooting.
The NCAA says Freeman lied to investigators about sharing betting information with Robinson and his girlfriend, and provided false or misleading information by denying that he had a daily fantasy sports account. The report says the NCAA “substantiated he had an account in his name and email address and that he made monetary deposits into the account at a previous institution [Milwaukee].”
Freeman, who averaged 13.7 points per game, was dismissed at Arizona State for “conduct detrimental to the team” in late February. It was subsequently reported that he was transferring to Central Florida, but Freeman never joined the team.
These three cases bring the number to five gambling-related probes the NCAA has concluded. Previously, three former players at Fresno State (including Robinson) and San Jose State were sanctioned for impermissible wagering last year on games and individual performances. And three players at Eastern Michigan were assessed Level I violations after refusing to cooperate fully with an investigation of their performances.
In September, the NCAA also announced that it had ongoing infractions cases involving former players at Temple and North Carolina A&T.
Another half-dozen teams withheld players from competition this week as the season began for what sources tell Sports Illustrated were potential connections to the ongoing gambling probes. In those cases, the players had transferred in from other schools.
It is unclear how many of the NCAA infractions cases are also part of the ongoing federal investigation of impermissible gambling at the college level.
The FBI college probe dovetails with an NBA inquiry that led to the arrest of current NBA player Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat, former player and assistant coach Damon Jones and current Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups. Former NBA player Jontay Porter had previously pleaded guilty to altering his performance for wagering purposes.
Some of the same people indicted in the NBA case are suspected of being involved in the college scandal as well, most notably gamblers Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley. The timeline of the federal investigation of the college game, which is being run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is unknown but believed to be in the latter stages.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as NCAA Sanctions Six Former Players in Widening College Basketball Gambling Scandal.
