Bleacher Report – Are Syracuse players shaving points for gambling purposes? YNN’s Andy Adamson has reported that Syracuse men’s basketball players Scoop Jardine, Dion Waiters and James Southerland are involved in a point shaving scandal at Syracuse: Syracuse started the season 18-0, with some very impressive wins, but have lost their last four games. There was one very odd loss in the mix. Syracuse was blown out at home by Seton Hall. Many called this the worst home loss for a top-10 team post-New Year’s in the history of college basketball. Seton Hall is a horrible team, with a coach who is in over his head, and players who have quit on the season. Seton Hall is so bad they may be kicked out of the Big East. It will be interesting to see how Syracuse responds to this scandal. Will they use it as motivation to succeed? Will it ultimately be the downfall of the team? Will the players involved face disciplinary action?

It should be noted that Dion Waiters did not play in Syracuse’s last game, his first DNP of the season. Waiters was a 42 percent shooter prior to this four-game stretch, and he had only topped seven shots in a game once, during a hot-shooting 5-for-8 effort against Iona. In his last four games, Waiters was shooting 16 percent, including his season highs for shot attempts for his career. Waiters’ career high had been four three-point attempts in a game. Waiters averaged four three-point attempts per game over this stretch. James Southerland also sat out Syracuse’s last game, after averaging approximately 20 mpg during the Big East season. Southerland, a frontcout rebounder, grabbed only three rebounds during this suspect stretch. This is lower than his per-game average on the boards entering this stretch, and well below the eight boards he grabbed in the game immediately prior to this stretch. Also of great interest is Scoop Jardine’s shooting over this four-game stretch. Jardine was shooting 44 percent entering this four-game stretch. During the four games, Jardine has gone 14-for-43 (32 percent). Coincidence?

Nothing like a good point shaving scandal to make the college hoops season interesting!  Got my Blue Chips VHS all queued up and ready to go watching Pete Bell and Happy drop off duffle bags of cash and tractor trailers to motherfuckers all over the place fixing grades so Tony passes TV class.   Probably watch Big Shot: Confessions Of A Campus Bookie too because that shit killed it back when it was on FX.   Just get in the mood for the hammer to drop on the Orange…hey wait a minute the main evidence for the case is a loss to Seton Hall?  And because the star shooter has been in a 4 game slump and one of the big men only grabbed 3 boards and took more shots one game than usual?  And because the freshman guard shooting 30% who can’t play defense (and who yelled Fuck You at Boeheim after getting benched) got a DNP?   Oh fuck.  That’s some airtight shit right there.  I mean a group of 18-22 year olds who ran out to an 18-0 start hitting a slump midseason and shooting poorly is almost unheard of.   If it were me I’d just fire Boeheim cancel the season right now.  It doesn’t get any more scandalous than a 4 game losing streak.  Just can’t escape hard hitting reporting like this.