Almost exactly a year ago in January 2025, Utah State’s athletics department received a phone call. No one answered and it was probably for the best.
The caller left an angry voicemail, expressing intense emotion tied to the fact that Utah State’s men’s basketball team had just lost to UNLV. The Aggies had started the season 16-1 before playing the Rebels and were ranked 22nd in the AP Top 25 poll.
Perhaps most importantly, or at least probably very important to the man on the other end of the phone, Utah State was a -5.5 favorite to beat UNLV. More than one person probably saw a 16-1 USU team up against a 9-7 UNLV squad (that was also on a two-game losing streak) and thought taking the Aggies at -5.5 was free money.
But it wasn’t. Utah State lost 65-62, and at least one person, whom USU head coach Jerrod Calhoun strongly suspected was an upset gambler, wanted to take it out their frustration on the Aggies by hurling verbal abuse over a phone line.
Such abuse can come over the phone but are also incredibly common on social media thanks to the ability ability for direct messages to be sent to players and coaches themselves on most platforms.
“Our guys get direct messages. Our guys take a lot of heat,” Calhoun said.
Sports betting is not legal in the state of Utah, one of just 11 remaining states in the U.S. where there is no kind of wagering on sports is allowed. And yet, the practice is able to have an impact on its citizens along with the Utah-based athletes who participate in the sporting events that those outside of Utah are free to gamble on.
Part of the problem is the prevalence of sports gambling, something anyone who follows any sport can attest to, whether they’ve chosen to place wagers or not. One can’t even browse scores without being reminded that you can place a bet on those games.
“Every time you go to ESPN.com, CBS, a couple other ones, when they list the games, the spread’s right on there,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun himself has preached to his players that “you’ve got to block out the noise,” but it gets increasingly more difficult when players are surrounded by gamblers and go to major events sponsored by sportsbooks. The Mountain West even has its media days and conference tournaments in Las Vegas where players, many of which are under the legal gambling age, will stay at casino resort hotels.
Multiple sports betting scandals have already hit the NCAA, Division I basketball in particular. A little more than 40 players for 19 different schools have been found to be placing bets or attempting to manipulate individual or team performance to ensure certain bets would hit. Those include three schools which Utah State has faced in the past two seasons: Fresno State, San Jose State and Tulane. The first widely publicised scandal involved the first two of that trio, the Bulldogs and Spartans. Three players, Mykell Robinson, Jalen Weaver and Steven Vasquez, were permanently banned by the NCAA in September over manipulation of betting lines.
According to a report by the NCAA, the three players communicated with each other about games in which they would deliberately underperform in specific stats so that prop bets regarding their performance would hit. One instance included a nearly $16,000 payout to the players when their bets hit.
A more recent scandal involved an additional 17 teams and far more manipulation. Robinson, Weaver and Vasquez appeared to be working mostly alone or with a few confederates who would place bets with the insider knowledge. And none of the three seemed to directly attempt to fix team results, merely their own individual state. But according to a federal indictment, some 39 players were paid by a gambling to directly influence actual game results with sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars placed in bets spreads. One of the teams with games impacted is Tulane, whom the Aggies played this year on Nov. 21.
While there are connections between Utah State and these teams, it seems unlikely that USU has had a game directly impacted by points shavers. There is one mildly suspicious case in a game last year. Utah State faced Fresno State within the time frame where bets were being placed by Robinson, Weaver and Vasquez. The Aggies trailed the Bulldogs 30-13 in the first half. After reaching that lead, Robinson checked back into the game at which point the Aggies went on an 11-4 run which helped them rally to be down just three points at halftime and eventually win 89-83. But again, Robinson, Weaver and Vasquez reportedly focussed on their own stat totals. And neither Robinson (10 points, eight rebounds in that game) or Weaver (16 points and nine rebounds) seemed to underperform in any notable way.
And yet it’s only “for now” that we can say that the Aggies have benegitted from, or have been hurt by a points shaver. The possibility that it will happen in the near future is uncomfortably high given how common the practice is becoming.
