Who is Antonio Blakeney? Ex-Chicago Bulls player indicted in NCAA point shaving scandal
Ex-LSU, Chicago Bulls guard Antonio Blakeney, now with Hapoel Tel Aviv, is charged for fixing a Duquesne game in Feb 2024 in a major NCAA point-shaving scheme.
Antonio Blakeney, a former LSU player who now plays for the Israeli basketball franchise Hapoel Tel Aviv Basketball Club, was among the 26 charged in the massive NCAA Division I point shaving match fixing scheme sweeping US college sports.
The fixing scheme, which spans NCAA games as well as games in China's basketball league, indicted Blakeney for his allegedly role in fixing a game Duquesne University in February 2024. Blakeney was then playing for the Jiangsu Dragons in China's CBA.
Blakeney is among the 26 players freshly named by federal investigators in an indictment unsealed at a federal court in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Blakeney played two seasons for LSU (2015-2017) before declaring for the 2017 NBA draft. In the NBA, he played briefly for the Chicago Bulls.
The point shaving scheme involved bribing players to underperform to fill the fixers' coffers. The fixers are accused of engaging "in a point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 players on more than 17 different NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams who then fixed and attempted to fix more than 29,” the indictment read, per an NBC report.
A shockingly weeping scandal, it involved students from Tulane, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, LaSalle, Fordham, Nicholls State, LSU, Buffalo, DePaul, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans and Alabama State, among others.
What Is Antonio Blakeney Accused Of?
Antonio Blakeney has been charged with his role for fixing a game at Duquesne University between Duquesne and Fordham on February 23, 2024. In this particular incident, Blakeney allegedly fixed a game along with ex-Fordham player Elijah Gray.
The scheme also involved Jalen Smith and Marves Fairley as the other defendants alongside Blakeney. Smith is accused of contacting Gray on social media and gave a “bribe payment of approximately $10,000 or $15,000 to underperform in and influence an upcoming Fordham basketball game.”
Gray, who was playing for Fordham then, was then contacted by Fairley and Blakeney with specific instructions on how to fix the game on a video call. Gray's role was "to ensure that Fordham failed to cover the spread.”
“The fixers also asked Gray to recruit another Fordham basketball player to join the point-shaving scheme," the indictment states, per a report by New York Post. "Gray agreed to do so and then recruited Person #4, known to the grand jury, to join the scheme.”
