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00:00There is something sacred about college basketball belief and effort in heart and in fair play but this week that
00:06belief was shaken a federal investigation revealed a wide reaching point shaving scheme involving dozens of players across multiple schools
00:15for those of us who revere the purity of this game. This does cut deep. Let's see how we got
00:21here. So again the prosecutors charging 26 people on Thursday. This also went beyond college basketball games in China as
00:28well. More than 39
00:29college basketball players on at least 17 D1 teams fixed and attempted to fix games accused of accepting deals from
00:3710 to $30,000 to intentionally compromise games for sports betting purposes. Now the NCAA has released a statement since
00:47that time coming from President Charlie Baker. It says in there they need the states and the regulators to help
00:52trying to eliminate things such as collegiate prop bets. They also will cooperate fully with law enforcement and they're urging
00:59student athletes to try and make well-informed decisions. This is something that they have been working on for years.
01:06You wonder also as NIL is getting more prevalent how will that play a part? I just wanted to have
01:12a conversation with you guys kind of a 30,000 feet. What is this like for the players and coaches
01:18and also how do you feel about it? And as we talked about it pre-show you have a very
01:23interesting personal tie to sports gambling and point shaving.
01:261978 I was part of that Boston College team. I was a manager on that team and I watched it
01:32destroy you know several lives. If you guys watch the movie The Goodfellas and you remember back in the day
01:37the Lufthansa heist. It was all tied in to the same ring in Pittsburgh that was involved with Rick Kuhn
01:44and getting Boston getting him who then got a couple of his teammates. Jim Sweeney was an amazing kid and
01:50then Ernie Cobb our best player. I didn't know what was going on.
01:53I couldn't tell from watching anybody other than Ernie Cobb because he was our best player and late in the
02:01year Ernie would have some bad shooting night smash that just looked like more than just bad shooting nights. And
02:07as a result of that it really set back those guys lives. As student athletes we're told over and over
02:13again it's I know how much money is at stake. It's not worth it. Correct.
02:16You're going to get caught and you're going to set your life back. I you know I'm not a gambler.
02:21I understand the math. I get that part of it. I understand the commercial part of it from sponsorships and
02:27from betting companies and fan engagement. I just don't get the it doesn't allow me to watch the game any
02:35differently. It doesn't allow me to participate in the game any differently when I play. So I'm a little bit
02:40confused on why people are doing it. I'm a purist at heart. I play with teammates and you sit there
02:45sometimes you're
02:46like man and you say it funny like you point shaving tonight. You know what I mean just by your
02:51poor performance and then you look at the landscape of what's happened or what is happening right now. I think
02:56the legalization in certain states is allowing it to flush out what's already been going on and it's coming to
03:03the surface right now and we're at the tip of the iceberg at this particular point of what's about to
03:08be uncovered from a father perspective that had a son playing at NCAA at Minnesota New Mexico and at
03:17Temple the thing that my son dealt with was on social media people in his DM's if he didn't perform
03:23well you messed up my bet and different things like that and even getting threats you know at that particular
03:28point. I'm just not a big proponent of it. I don't think it's going to leave the game. I think
03:33we're going to have to adjust and if you're a player I just don't understand how you can go out
03:39there and manufacturing mistakes intentionally. I just don't see how you do that but
03:46obviously players have done it but I'm just a big proponent that something has to happen legally to get this
03:52thing out of there. We're discussing it now but the reality is it's been happening since the beginning of time.
03:58Correct. Every sporting event has a favorite and an underdog and as somebody that plays and as somebody that does
04:04gamble mostly on NFL games that helps the popularity of that sport. Why is the NFL so popular? Because people
04:11are betting on it. People are playing fantasy.
04:13The NCAA tournament. What do you do when you're filling out a bracket? Everybody's betting on the bracket. So it's
04:19actually been happening since the beginning of time. I remember being in college playing against Northwestern and a Ricky Bird
04:26song team. They were betting on the game and it was like the worst loss of my collegiate career. But
04:33they was out there hustling. Like they was playing for their lives.
04:37Right, right, right, right. You know what I'm saying? We was playing basketball. They was playing for their lives. And
04:42it's like a different rush. And it's one thing for somebody to give you $10,000. And for anybody that's
04:50ever bet, it's different to win $10,000 on a bet. Right.
04:55It's way different. It's way different. Explain that to me because I struggle with that part of it. Like what
05:01type of rush is it? Does it lead to like a passionate? But does that lead to an addiction? You
05:07know what I mean? At some point? It's both. It's both. It's both. And it's also like it's one thing
05:13to play the game and like be a performer. It's another game to predict a game and win something that
05:19you felt like was going to happen. But you have no control. Yeah. That's the part that I don't understand.
05:25You convince yourself that you have control.