Kennesaw State is back in March Madness after a scandal rocked the team. Will Simeon Cottle play?

A federal investigation into a sprawling betting scheme to fix basketball games stretched from the Chinese Basketball Association to the NCAA and has ensnared 26 people, including current and former college players, prosecutors revealed Thursday. A group of fixers, including gamblers, recruited players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. In cash, hand-delivered by fixers after a game was successfully rigged, prosecutors say.

Federal prosecutors have revealed a sprawling scheme to rig college basketball games while yielding big payouts to gamblers. According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, fixers started with two professional games in China before turning their focus to recruiting college players in America to participate in similar point-shaving efforts as recently as January 2025. The indictment, which includes charges against current and former college players, coincides with multiple NCAA probes into sports-betting violations.

Federal indictment claims 39 players from 17 schools, along with five “fixers,” were part of a point-shaving scheme for betting purposes.

One of the worst scandals in the modera era.

Fifteen of the defendants are current or former men's college basketball players.

An investigation into a sprawling betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games has ensnared 26 people, including more than a dozen college basketball players who tried to fix games as recently as last season, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The scheme generally revolved around gamblers who placed bets and recruited players with the promise of a big payment in exchange for purposefully underperforming during a game, prosecutors said. Calling it an “international criminal conspiracy,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf told reporters in Philadelphia that this case represents a “significant corruption of the integrity of sports.”