As the NBA’s investigation into unlawful playing continues to unfold, the NCAA was hit with the same investigation of its personal—and a BIG EAST group on the heart of all of it.
A 70-page indictment launched on Jan. 15 alleged that 4 former DePaul University players manipulated recreation outcomes for sportsbook bettors through the 2023-24 basketball season.
Da’Sean Nelson, Micawber Etienne, Jalen Terry and one unnamed participant allegedly deliberately underperformed to affect the result of three video games, together with DePaul’s dwelling video games in opposition to Georgetown on Feb. 24, 2024, Butler on March 2, 2024, and St. John’s on March 5, 2024.
It appears that solely dwelling video games have been affected, however the mounted video games occurred inside simply days of one another. Many different faculties within the BIG EAST may have been affected by this, a kind of groups being Seton Hall.
Following their loss to St. John’s, DePaul was set to face SHU on the Prudential Center on March 9, 2024, and who’s to say these players didn’t repair that recreation as effectively? The end result of their matchup was an 86-62 win for the Pirates.
With these mounted video games taking place too shut for consolation round their matchup with the Pirates, some students at SHU have considerations and search enhancements to this situation, whatever the Pirates profitable that recreation.
Junior journalism main Dylan Lozano-Valerio, for instance, voiced solutions to coach athletes to deal with sports betting conditions and the hurt of in depth promoting.
“From an athletic department standpoint, just having more guardrails for those types of things [by] teaching these athletes how to protect themselves,” Lozano-Valerio mentioned. “A lot of people talk about how sports betting is advertised for everybody, including young men [like the players involved who] aren’t adults yet and can’t sports bet [legally] yet.”
Lozano-Valerio added that he believes these players get excited and when they’re provided to be a part of one thing greater than themselves, they have an inclination to “jump the gun” and take the chance to earn some additional income.
Aside from simply coaching athletes, some SHU students suppose that universities’ athletic departments ought to encourage athletes to inform them when contacted, to keep away from getting concerned in scandals reminiscent of these. One student-athlete at SHU, who selected to be nameless for private causes, believes that there ought to be conferences and consultants to show these like himself how to economize.
“It’d be beneficial for every college athlete to have monthly conferences and courses where they have an expert come in and teach them how to not only properly save money, but take care of their earnings,” student-athlete mentioned. “Personal finances overall are very important for student-athletes, so they are able to save up what they make in college.”
Other students, like junior sports media main James Costa, highlighted how the involvement of those DePaul players is “a bad look” for universities within the BIG EAST.
“It’s an embarrassment to the BIG EAST, to the conference as a whole because regardless of how well they play, it’s still a representation of the conference in general,” Costa mentioned.
“There is no precedent right now for sports betting, lawfully or within the schools. At the end of the day, it has to be on the school’s a little bit,” he added. “You have to be able to help your student athletes and be able to guide them in the right direction.”
Costa even proposed incorporating an “anonymous penalty-free reporting option,” the place students-athletes can report if they’ve been contacted or have details about the same scenario.
In settlement with Costa is junior finance and advertising and marketing main Oren Mouton, defined how athletic departments, together with coaches, ought to be extra proactive in regards to the matter.
“It needs to be on the coaches to educate their players,” Mouton mentioned.
In addition to athletic departments being extra proactive, sophomore enterprise scholar James Smith believes that figuring out what drives these student-athletes to get entangled in such prison exercise ought to be prioritized and prevented.
“We must identify why student-athletes feel compelled to turn to illegal influences in the first place,” Smith mentioned. “If we can understand the root causes—whether financial pressure, lack of support, or fear of losing opportunities—we can address the problem before it escalates.”
“Prevention starts with recognizing these vulnerabilities and offering real solutions,” Smith added. “Not just punishment after the fact.”
DePaul will play host to SHU later right now, because the Pirates make the journey to Chicago trying to keep away from a four-game dropping streak.
Jayden Bracket is a author for The Setonian’s Sports part. He will be reached at [email protected].