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Point shaving still hasn’t been fixed by NCAA
I’m beginning to get that sinking feeling again.
Teddy Dupay is a basketball player entering his senior year at the University of Florida and who, according to two of the state’s largest newspapers, is being investigated by school officials for possible violations of the student code. The university’s police department confirmed that it has launched an investigation into gambling by a student athlete.
Florida’s compliance director also confirmed the school was investigating an incident involving gambling.
I’m hoping that Dupay, an honor student, is completely absolved of any wrongdoing.
The NCAA doesn’t need another point-shaving scandal. There have been six since 1992 - six too many.
The NCAA attempts to discourage placing bets and providing information to individuals involved in organized gambling activities concerning college athletes by enforcing a mandatory one-year suspension, but there needs to be a greater penalty.
A one-year suspension is not enough punishment. Especially when you consider the rise and acceptance of college basketball gambling, which can be a lure as well as a danger for college athletes, both suspecting and unsuspecting.
Gambling is big, big business. The FBI estimates that close to $2.5 billion is wagered illegally every year on the NCAA Tournament, from bets placed with small-time bookmakers to office pools.
In most cases, athletes involved in point-shaving scandals are burdened with gambling debts they couldn’t pay off.
They compounded their original mistake by agreeing to participate in schemes to ensure a game’s final scoring margin for betting purposes. The bribes they received either put money in their pocket or helped pay off their debts.
Arizona State basketball players Stevin Smith and Isaac Burton Jr. pleaded guilty in 1997 to conspiring to fix four games in exchange for their debts being forgiven and an additional payment of $20,000.
No one is immune.
They can be from a poor background, looking to get rich quick or merely putting some extra money in their pocket. It can just as easily be someone from a middle class family perfectly capable of affording a brand new vehicle for their child, who has already earned a college education on a full scholarship valued in the high five figures.
When speaking before the Committee on the Judiciary on the issue of gambling in college sports last June, Kentucky basketball coach Tubby Smith said one of the players he recruited when he coached at Tulsa was involved in a basketball point-shaving scandal at Northwestern a few years ago.
"This young man came from a very well-to-do family," Smith said, "and I never once thought he could be involved with a crime so sinister that it could not only rock Northwestern University, it would rock the very foundation of college basketball."
When Boston College basketball coach Tom Davis discovered his players were charged with point-shaving, 20 years ago, he went to the tape. Davis spent hours breaking down game film to determine if those players were deliberately making mistakes.
Davis couldn’t tell.
How many other potential point-shaving cases have there been that never went public?
The first major scandal occurred in 1951, when 32 college basketball players from seven schools were implicated in a scheme to "fix" 86 games.
Forty years later, the NCAA still hasn’t fixed the problem.
John Harris is a Blade sports columnist. E-mail him at jharris@theblade.com.
I’m beginning to get that sinking feeling again.
Teddy Dupay is a basketball player entering his senior year at the University of Florida and who, according to two of the state’s largest newspapers, is being investigated by school officials for possible violations of the student code. The university’s police department confirmed that it has launched an investigation into gambling by a student athlete.
Florida’s compliance director also confirmed the school was investigating an incident involving gambling.
I’m hoping that Dupay, an honor student, is completely absolved of any wrongdoing.
The NCAA doesn’t need another point-shaving scandal. There have been six since 1992 - six too many.
The NCAA attempts to discourage placing bets and providing information to individuals involved in organized gambling activities concerning college athletes by enforcing a mandatory one-year suspension, but there needs to be a greater penalty.
A one-year suspension is not enough punishment. Especially when you consider the rise and acceptance of college basketball gambling, which can be a lure as well as a danger for college athletes, both suspecting and unsuspecting.
Gambling is big, big business. The FBI estimates that close to $2.5 billion is wagered illegally every year on the NCAA Tournament, from bets placed with small-time bookmakers to office pools.
In most cases, athletes involved in point-shaving scandals are burdened with gambling debts they couldn’t pay off.
They compounded their original mistake by agreeing to participate in schemes to ensure a game’s final scoring margin for betting purposes. The bribes they received either put money in their pocket or helped pay off their debts.
Arizona State basketball players Stevin Smith and Isaac Burton Jr. pleaded guilty in 1997 to conspiring to fix four games in exchange for their debts being forgiven and an additional payment of $20,000.
No one is immune.
They can be from a poor background, looking to get rich quick or merely putting some extra money in their pocket. It can just as easily be someone from a middle class family perfectly capable of affording a brand new vehicle for their child, who has already earned a college education on a full scholarship valued in the high five figures.
When speaking before the Committee on the Judiciary on the issue of gambling in college sports last June, Kentucky basketball coach Tubby Smith said one of the players he recruited when he coached at Tulsa was involved in a basketball point-shaving scandal at Northwestern a few years ago.
"This young man came from a very well-to-do family," Smith said, "and I never once thought he could be involved with a crime so sinister that it could not only rock Northwestern University, it would rock the very foundation of college basketball."
When Boston College basketball coach Tom Davis discovered his players were charged with point-shaving, 20 years ago, he went to the tape. Davis spent hours breaking down game film to determine if those players were deliberately making mistakes.
Davis couldn’t tell.
How many other potential point-shaving cases have there been that never went public?
The first major scandal occurred in 1951, when 32 college basketball players from seven schools were implicated in a scheme to "fix" 86 games.
Forty years later, the NCAA still hasn’t fixed the problem.
John Harris is a Blade sports columnist. E-mail him at jharris@theblade.com.
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