Temple Basketball Being Monitored for Potential Point Shaving

Since the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for legalized sports gambling, states have quickly capitalized on the momentum. Now you can place a wager in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Most welcomed the addition of the multi-billion dollar industry with open arms, while some cautioned the unintended consequences.

Some college athletes have already made irreparable sports gambling mistakes. There were at least seven players at Iowa and Iowa State charged for placing bets in games in which they played.

Point shaving is a fear that was realized more than 100 years ago in the Black Sox scandal. It made its way into college hoops at Boston College in the late 70s. Now one team has been put under the microscope for potentially throwing games.

Pat Forde reports the gambling watchdog company U.S. Integrity sent out alerts to casinos on Thursday about potential suspicious betting activity in the Temple-UAB game. U.S. Intergrity is the same company that flagged activity on the Alabama baseball game that got Brad Bohannon fired. Many sportsbooks took action off the board before the game tipped off.

UAB opened as a 1.5-point favorite and within an hour it was up to UAB -8, an incredibly unusual line movement this late in the season. Temple was out-rebounded 41-19 in a 100-72 loss. This is not the first time there has been a fishy line around the Owls. Forde reports U.S. Integrity has been monitoring Temple games for a while.

"There's nothing we can find here. Look, I'm not gonna say this is point-shaving…It's weird to see it a second time with Temple."

Jim Root on the Temple basketball team's line dramatically shifting for the second time this year.pic.twitter.com/nBSlnAUYZ8

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 8, 2024

Temple is not a good basketball team. They’re 11-19 overall and 4-14 in American Athletic Conference play. The Owls are 12-16-1 Against the Spread (ATS) this season, according to Action Network.

More Suspicious Point Shaving Activity

Remember Mo Hasan? He was a quarterback for Vanderbilt that started in a few games for the Commodores. Now a social media influencer, he recently shared a story on his podcast that he was asked to get involved in point shaving.

“I was approached at Jason Aldean’s bar in Nashville by the Italian mob to fix football games,” said Hasan. The alleged offer was for $300,000 for one game. The mobster also told Hasan that every game in the SEC is rigged.

Take the story with a grain of salt. No matter how little truth was used in the sharing of that story, it’s safe to say that shady characters are looming, looking to capitalize as sports gambling becomes more and more prevalent.

When the Italian Mafia approached @Mo_Hasan10 at Jason Aldean's bar to rig an SEC football game for 300k🤯

Would you have taken the money? pic.twitter.com/okqPN0WsJJ

— Momentum Podcast (@momentumpod) March 1, 2024