Last week, 26 people — 20 of them current or former players and most of the rest the guys who were the fixers — were arrested.
U.S. Attorney David Metcalf summed up this scandal the other day when he told reporters in Philadelphia that this case represents: “A significant corruption of the integrity of sports.”
Both Grant and Sargent offered measured thoughts over the challenges young people face today — especially athletes — and what they see their jobs to be.
No Dayton or Wright State players from last season or the year before were said to be involved in those tainted games, but the two schools did get pulled into the conversation by others.
Wright State’s game at Eastern Michigan on Dec. 21, 2024 was one that federal investigators said was altered.
Three Eastern Michigan players were allegedly involved in holding down the score in the first half to be sure Wright State covered the first-half spread.
The fixers bet big on that outcome and the Raiders did hold a 38-27 advantage at halftime.
In the second half EMU surged ahead — outscoring Wright State by 15 — and went on to win, 86-82.
The plot was discovered in part because the fixers were greedy bumblers who bet an inordinate amount of money on obscure games — like $458,000 on the first half outcome of Towson versus North Carolina A&T and $424,00 on the first 20 minutes of the Buffalo-Kent State game — and that action caught the attention of authorities.
And both the fixers and the athletes had a penchant for sending damning text messages — way too many of them — and those exchanges have been recovered.
According to the 70-page indictment, federal investigators have one text in which a fixer tries persuading an Eastern Michigan player to make sure two other teammates are on board for the WSU game.
The guy wrote: “bro, let me send 3k right now a band for each of yall so you know I ain’t joking.”
According to authorities, each player in these various contests would get $10,000 to $30,000 per game for his part in the fix.
Dayton was pulled into the mess a different way.
Last April Adam Njie Jr., a speedy and talented freshman guard at Iona, committed to transfer to UD.
He played in two exhibition games for the Flyers in October, but before the start of the regular season the university was informed by the NCAA that he was facing “potential eligibility concerns.”
According to a report by Pat Forde, of Sports Illustrated, “Njie’s situation is connected to the ongoing investigation of gambling-related activity in college basketball. It is unclear if Njie is under scrutiny from both the NCAA and federal investigators, or just the NCAA.”
Neil Sullivan, UD’s Vice President/Director of Athletics then announced that in light of those concerns and an “ongoing review process,” Njie would not be playing for the Flyers.
Through November and into early December Njie practiced with the Flyers and ran the scout team. He sat on the bench at home games, but didn’t travel with the team.
His last game on the UD Arena sidelines was a Dec. 2 contest with East Tennessee State. Two weeks later Grant said he had returned home to the Bronx to be with his family.
Last Monday Sullivan announced he was no longer enrolled at UD.
Whatever he was involved in came before he was a Flyer.
He was not one of the 20 athletes arrested, nor was Iona mentioned in what may be just the first round of indictments.
Other players among the 39 flagged in the probe have been sanctioned by the NCAA.
UD has been particularly careful in this situation because of another game-fixing scandal that has some eerie similarities.
In that one, UD freshman sensation Roger Brown was ensnared for knowing the two prime fixers in the massive 1961 fraud case.
That association was made back in New York when he was a schoolboy star before he got to UD. He was never charged and there was never any evidence he fixed games, but UD jettisoned him after a semester and the NCAA and NBA blackballed him.
He remained loyal to UD — he lived here almost six years afterward and worked in factories and starred in industrial league ball — and finally Oscar Robertson got him hooked up with the Indiana Pacers of the ABA and he went on to have a glorious career that landed him in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
At the time, UD and this newspaper, as well as the Journal Herald, treated Brown unfairly. The picture of him painted in print was exaggerated and at times untrue.
The university has since tried to rectify past slights and has a social justice program named after Brown at the school.
UD officials have been mindful of the Brown situation when dealing with the Njie case, though I can tell you, long before this, Grant — as well as WSU’s Sargent — showed they look out for players better than most coaches.
‘Corruption of integrity’
The conferences that our three Miami Valley-area teams play in — Dayton in the Atlantic 10, Wright State in the Horizon League and Miami in the Mid-American Conference — all were hit by the scandal.
Players from Eastern Michigan and Buffalo — both in the MAC — were arrested for their alleged involvements.
It was the same for the A-10 where at least one player from both Saint Louis and Fordham was arrested. But other players at both schools, as well as one at Saint Bonaventure, are alleged to be involved.
Three players from Robert Morris in the Horizon League were also alleged to have taken part and one, so far, has been arrested.
A Feb. 28, 2024 game between Robert Morris and Northern Kentucky had fixers bet $256,000 that NKU would cover the first half spread.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
Five days later, they bet $50,000 that Purdue Fort Wayne would cover the spread against Robert Morris in the first half of a Horizon League tournament game.
That all this is coming out now — that the “corruption of integrity” that Metcalf mentioned appears real — is a smack in the face to legit programs and upstanding athletes who are experiencing good times thanks to the fruits of honest labor.
At present, our three local Division I schools are riding some good times.
Going into Saturday’s game against Buffalo at Millett Hall, Miami was 18-0, one of only three unbeaten Division I teams.
Dayton, with its 78-51 victory over Loyola Saturday night at UD Arena is now 14-4 and unbeaten in A-10 play.
Wright State, with its 93-83 victory over Youngstown State at the Nutter Center Thursday, has now won seven in a row, and is 12-7 and 7-1 in the Horizon League.
All three coaches — Grant, Sargent and especially Miami’s Travis Steele — have done an admirable job this year and that makes the tainted flip side of the college game now even more problematic for them.
‘It’s just not worth it’
Grant prefaced his remarks, saying that he doesn’t know enough about what is going on to speak in detail. But he did have thoughts on the college game that he has — as a player and coach — dedicated most of his life to:
“You try to help guys understand how to put themselves in position to be the best version of themselves and what the standards, the expectations, the rules are. What you should and shouldn’t do.
“As a young person, they’ve got so much coming at them in this era of college athletics.
“Some of the stuff that we as adults decided — whether it’s coaches or the courts or the NCAA — was a good idea, but like most things in life you have unintended consequences that put young people in jeopardy."
He was talking, I assume, about the partnership of college programs and gambling companies to bolster revenue and the NIL money windfalls for athletes now.
Investigators found that the fixers especially targeted athletes who weren’t getting much or any NIL money.
“Someone told me a long time ago the best math you can learn is the future cost of current decisions,” Grant said
He said what sometimes seems like a good idea for a young person can “risk your education, your future, your reputation and your legacy … It’s just not worth it.”
He said he had mixed feelings — sadness and anger — about what has happened and how “young people with some unbelievable opportunities have thrown it away.”
Sargent touched on similar themes after the Raiders topped Youngstown State.
He too said there was much he wasn’t privy to, but added:
“I will say this: The leadership of young people is the most important thing we’ve got going right now in our society. I don’t think there’s ever been a harder time to be young.
“They are bombarded with money, with gambling, with all that’s in the world. These guys get caught up in it and I feel for them.
“We need to step up for young people. That doesn’t mean you baby them or coddle them. You have to love them and discipline them, but you’ve got to show them the way.
“I have five young kids of my own and they really, really need a coach to stand on the front lines and help them sift through all this.”
A veteran radio reporter asked him if this kind of challenge — far from just the Xs and Os of coaching — is what has driven several older coaches from the game recently.
The 37-year-old Sargent said he didn’t know about that, but he emphasized:
“I believe our job is to stay firm in it and help lead it. I’m thankful being on the front end of my career in a time that’s chaotic.
“It’s perfect timing for how I view my real job.”
In situations like now, that thought, is something to hang onto.
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