A dramatic shift in the point spread for a men’s basketball game between the Temple Owls and UAB Blazers has triggered an investigation from gambling company U.S. Integrity on Thursday night, according to Sports Illustrated. UAB was -1.5 point favorite over Temple to open the day; hours later, the line had moved to UAB -8 without any significant injury news or roster changes altering the outlook of the game.
Temple-UAB investigation into suspicious gambling movement, explained
Suspicious point spread movement in a Temple-UAB men’s basketball game has led to an investigation.
Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
UAB beat Temple, 100-72, in the American Athletic Conference matchup. Temple drops to 11-19 overall. The Owls’ season will soon be over barring a miracle run in the AAC tournament.
The AAC hired U.S. Integrity to monitor gambling activity around the conference. The company says its mission is to “identify suspicious behavior by analyzing changes in betting data against a benchmark of normal betting activity.” U.S. Integrity also helped catch the impossibly stupid Alabama baseball gambling scandal from earlier this year.
Temple put out the following statement.
Here’s what we know so far.
The Temple-UAB line moved significantly for no real reason
Going from a 1.5-point spread to an 8-point spread is extremely strange without a valid reason. There doesn’t appear to be one in this instance.
This isn’t the first time a Temple line has moved significantly at the last moment
College basketball analyst Jim Root mentioned that this was the second time one of Temple’s spreads had moved dramatically just hours before the game.
People are talking about it
There was a lot of chatter about what the heck was going on with the Temple line on social media:
Gambling companies are now a major factor in American sports, with most leagues have partnerships with industry leaders. While the NFL has suspended some players over gambling the last two seasons, there still hasn’t been a real “match fixing” scandal in the mainstream. Are these allegations about the Temple-UAB game the start of one?
See More:
