The NCAA on Friday declared six former Division I men’s basketball players permanently ineligible after investigations found they tried to fix games and provided information to gamblers about how they would manipulate performances and outcomes.
Three former players from New Orleans (Cedquavious Hunter, Dyquavian Short and Jamond Vincent), two from Mississippi Valley State (Donovan Sanders and Alvin Stredic) and one from Arizona State (BJ Freeman) were banned as a result of the investigations. The NCAA said the investigations are not directly connected and only implicated the players involved, not the schools or any employees. All six players are no longer enrolled at their previous schools.
All three cases were settled via a negotiated resolution process with the schools and do not include a hearing before the committee on infractions. The committee must sign off on the negotiated penalties.
The New Orleans case was sparked when multiple companies that monitor sports betting for potential improprieties alerted NCAA enforcement on Feb. 4 to suspicious wagering activity on five of the team’s games.
Text messages between Vincent and three third parties indicated he told the recipients to bet on a Dec. 28, 2024, game between New Orleans and McNeese because he and his teammates planned to “throw the game,” the NCAA’s report said. Vincent, Hunter and Short “manipulated their performances” in seven games last December and January, the NCAA said.
The NCAA report said a teammate of the players involved in the scheme told school officials and investigators he overheard a conversation involving the three players about another person placing a bet for them on the game.
“Vincent acknowledged the conversations about throwing the game but denied following through with the plan, and Short and Hunter denied knowledge of and involvement in the plan,” the NCAA said.
The NCAA’s report also noted text messages recovered from Short’s phone showed an exchange between Hunter and Short on Jan. 20, 2025, the day New Orleans played Northwestern State, “in which Short and Hunter discussed receiving $5,000 and plans to go shopping at Sak’s Fifth Avenue the next day. Phone logs from the student-athletes also identified FaceTime calls on that same day with a known bettor flagged by sports book operators.”
Sanders and Stredic, the former Mississippi Valley State players, were found to have provided information to bettors for the purpose of betting on games. Another player on the team told NCAA investigators that he overheard Sanders on the phone with an unknown third party talking about “throwing” a game played against Tulsa on Dec. 21, 2024.
The NCAA report said Sanders asked the teammate to “get on the phone with the unknown individual because the individual wanted to know that Sanders had another teammate who would participate in the scheme, as the unknown individual was placing a bet.”
The teammate did and told the person on the phone he would participate.
The NCAA report said the unidentified athlete denied altering his performance or receiving any money.
“The enforcement staff demonstrated that Sanders knowingly provided information to a third party for the purposes of sports betting for two games and Stredic did the same for one game,” the NCAA said.
Sanders and Stredic failed to cooperate with NCAA investigators by providing “false or misleading information” and did not provide requested records, the NCAA said.
Freeman, who had a year of eligibility left, was found to have provided information to a player at Fresno State, who was using the information to bet on Freeman through daily fantasy games. Freeman also misled and lied to investigators, the NCAA said. The Fresno State player, Mykell Robinson, was previously declared eligible in September.
The NCAA announced in September it was investigating the activities of 13 players from six schools: Arizona State, Temple, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina A&T, New Orleans and Eastern Michigan.
Late last month, the NCAA declared three former Eastern Michigan players — Jalin Billingsley, Da’Sean Nelson and Jalen Terry — permanently ineligible for refusing to cooperate with the NCAA’s investigation into potential violations. All three had already exhausted their NCAA eligibility.
The NCAA said the Mississippi Valley State inquiry came after “public reporting in February 2025 about an NBA gambling ring that was potentially tied to college basketball.”
“The NCAA asked an integrity monitoring service to review Mississippi Valley games for suspicious activity,” it said. That triggered the NCAA to contact the school.
The NCAA has not acknowledged any relation to the activities involving its investigation and two recent federal indictments involving illegal gambling and former and current NBA players.
People briefed on the NCAA’s investigation have told The Athletic that federal investigators have neither contacted nor shared any information with the association.
“The NCAA has no further comment at this time beyond the news release and public decision,” a spokeswoman told The Athletic.
Last month, more than 30 people — including Portland Trail Blazers coach and former NBA star Chauncey Billups — were arrested for involvement in an expansive, mafia-backed scheme uncovered by the Department of Justice and FBI involving rigged, illegal poker games and bettors using insider information to make fraudulent wagers on the NBA.
NBA player Terry Rozier is accused of removing himself from games as a way to ensure bets related to his own performance — so-called prop bets based on individual player statistics — would cash for bettors he was in cahoots with.
Former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter, who was indicted in a separate case, has been banned by the NBA and pleaded guilty to one federal charge of wire fraud conspiracy for his role in the scheme. He is awaiting sentencing.
The NCAA has pushed for a ban on prop bets at the college level. Experts say those types of wagers are especially susceptible to manipulation.
A person briefed on the investigation told The Athletic that federal investigators are also looking into similar activities involving college basketball players, but noted that law enforcement officials at a news conference last month in New York stated there was no connection between the indictments and NCAA basketball. They also referred to the case as an ongoing and open investigation.
In September, the NCAA banned three men’s basketball players for participating in gambling, including betting on their own games and “manipulating” performances to alter outcomes. Two players were from Fresno State, including Robinson, and the other from San Jose State, though they had all been together at Fresno State.
Meanwhile, college sports leaders are grappling with how best to adapt to the new era of pervasive, legalized gambling on sporting events. Nearly 40 states permit wagering on sporting events, and the online gambling industry has exploded. The NCAA and conferences work closely with watchdog companies that monitor legal sportsbooks for unusual and potentially illegal activity.
The NCAA was on the verge of lifting its ban on legal sports betting by athletes, coaches and others who work for athletic departments. The governing bodies of each of the NCAA’s three divisions approved a recommendation to allow athletes and others to legally bet on professional sports while maintaining a ban on college sports. The new rule was expected to go into effect on Nov. 1, but soon after the federal indictments hit the NBA, there was public pushback from some NCAA members.
In a letter to NCAA president Charlie Baker, obtained by The Athletic, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey urged the NCAA Division I Board of Directors to rescind the rule change.
Hours after the letter became public, the DI Board voted to delay the implementation of the sports betting change until Nov. 22. It would require a vote by two-thirds of Division I schools to rescind the rule. The deadline for that vote is Nov. 21.
— The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov contributed to this report.