Saint Louis University was one of the schools named as having played in a fixed contest.
ST. LOUIS — A sweeping indictment of people accused of point-shaving in college basketball games was unsealed Thursday and, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, it “enveloped 17 NCAA schools, 39 players and a few dozen games that were fixed.”
Saint Louis University was one of the schools named as having played in a fixed contest. Former player Bradley Ezewiro was one of a group of college basketball players charged in the indictment. Ezewiro played at SLU in the 2023-24 season and had been with four universities in four years.
In his lone season with the Billikens, Ezewiro averaged 12 points and 6.2 rebounds per game.
The fixed games include contests involving Nicholls State, Tulane, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, LaSalle, Fordham, Buffalo, DePaul, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Eastern Michigan and Alabama State, according to NBC News.
According to the indictment, in mid to late February 2024, two of the ‘fixers’ in the scandal recruited players on the St. Louis Billikens to participate in the game-fixing scheme. The indictment alleges that Ezewiro and another, unnamed person “agreed to help ensure that St. Louis failed to cover the first-half spread in that game.”
The indictment further says that on Feb. 20, 2024, Ezewiro and the unnamed player were involved in making sure that St. Louis did not come within 5 points of Duquesne by halftime. All the while, the “fixers,” as they are referred to in the indictment, wagered approximately $242,000 that Duquesne would be ahead by more than five points by halftime.
The game was 41-27 Duquesne at the half, easily more than the five-point spread.
According to U.S. Attorney David Metcalf, the scheme involved giving players between $10,000 and $30,000 to underperform in a game their team was already predicted to lose. The idea was to have said team lose by a margin greater than the point-spread of the game.
Metcalf said that once the player was bribed, organizers of the point-shaving scheme would wager tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He said the scheme included some of the nation’s most celebrated basketball conferences like the Big East and ACC.
Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri Attorney General, who now serves as a co-deputy director of the FBI, was involved in the case.
“Those who believed they could operate in the shadows, defraud the public and escape justice were wrong,” he said at Thursday’s press conference.