🏈 OT, but what the heck. Point shaving at Auburn - FBI investigating basketball program.

[TerryP]

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-ba...aving-varez-ward-allegations-yahoo-report-fbi

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ys-robinson_auburn_investigation_varez_ward_030812

 

[Duder]

Why on earth anyone would think they need to pay one of our players for another team to cover the spread against us....

Who knew we had players good enough to intentionally suck?!

At least we reported to the FBI, NCAA and such

 

[TerryP]

The games in question.

 

[TerryP]

Why on earth anyone would think they need to pay one of our players for another team to cover the spread against us....

Who knew we had players good enough to intentionally suck?!

At least we reported to the FBI, NCAA and such

It's a really strange story Duder. It makes no sense.

 

[Duder]

Why on earth anyone would think they need to pay one of our players for another team to cover the spread against us....

Who knew we had players good enough to intentionally suck?!

At least we reported to the FBI, NCAA and such

It's a really strange story Duder. It makes no sense.

None! We're horrible! Why pay when it would probably happen anyway?!

There's a special place in sports hell for people like Ward. The rest of those young men were busting their ass to try and put our team on the map and this ass is intentionally playing worse?!

 

[Brandon Van de Graaff]

...another point shaving scandal, and Stephen Garcia isn't the target... I'm shocked and saddened. Well, pretty much just shocked in this case.

 

[TerryP]

With Garcia, there were reasons to suspect something as I see it. I play the spreads and I, and probably very few others, couldn't point to another example of a 5 point swing that quickly like they had against E. Carolina. Navy was weird as well. But, the games also mentioned with Garcia--Auburn and Kentucky--didn't make a lot of sense then.

Here, like I said, no sense to me.

I wonder if Ward was the pawn here, who was having contact with him? If other players turned him in, what did they see or hear to make them suspicious?

 

[Duder]

I wonder if Ward was the pawn here, who was having contact with him? If other players turned him in, what did they see or hear to make them suspicious?

I'm sure he was the pawn. He's also pretty bad at sports as a whole so you'd have to look closely to find a reason to be suspicious. In sure they heard something or perhaps were Ben approached.

 

[Bo]

As far as AU Basketball covering the spread goes, I heard on the radio this morning that AU was actually 12 for 16 against the spread vs the SEC this year. Don't know how much truth there is to this, but that's what they said.

 

[psychojoe]

Remembering the two games in question, Alabama covered because some great three point shooting emerged, apparently for that game only. To me the biggest factor in the Arkansas game was Kenny Gabriel going down. Makes the point shaving allegation seem fishy. I hope it isn't so. Basketball does not need this now, or any other time.

 

[UAgrad93]

This coming out now right now at tourney time is definitely a black eye for the sport.

 

[gumboman]

He also denied the charges, which means the feds will crawling up their program, with a microscope. Not good. As far as the team goes, it stinks for the kids (and coaches) that are left to deal with it. Their basketball team is one or two good shooters away from being very dangerous. Their defense is there. Just missing a shooter or two. This will not help Barbee, to say the least. I feel for the kids that have put the work in, only to be derailed by some punk/thug trying to "get his." Doesn't help much with the image of our state or the SEC, either.

 

[Duder]

Barbee will take some heat but they did the right thing.

I'm not worried about long-term implications for the program. Unless someone linked to the program bank-rolled point-shaving we'll be fine since, by all accounts, we acted swiftly.

Ward is the one under the gun at the moment. Of course he's going to deny it. Whether he did it or not is immaterial at this point anyone would say they didn't do it....publicly.

 

[gumboman]

Probably some bookie in a frat house that schemed this with Ward. Small time crooks. The media will paint it as if it is a HUGE scandal, so people will watch, just like everything else these days.

 

[TerryP]

Does anyone remember what happened with Teddy Dupay out of Florida? It wasn't point shaving as I recall but I do recall UF saying it was gambling related. This was back in 2000 or 2001. I remember Tubby Smith testifying about a player when he was just coming on the basketball scene. Tom Davis at BC dealt with it also.

Point is, you would be surprised how gambling hits college athletics. You aleady know its impact on the NBA as just one example.

 

[psychojoe]

I think there was a Bama player involved in point shaving in the later fifties.

Kentucky had a huge scandal involving its program late forties to early fifties.

Edited: We had two players involved: Dan Quindazzi and Jerry Vogel off the 1959 team. Both did time for point shaving and bribery. We were mediocre in that period, so I guess the perps were thinking it would fly under the radar.