NCAA: Alabama State Basketball Players Wagered On Game

Sports betting has embroiled professional and collegiate sports in controversies they don’t particularly want to be associated with. The Brendan Sorsby scandal has rocked college football, and there’s another situation involving an HBCU basketball team that has put the topic of sports gambling front and center once more.

According to the findings of an NCAA investigation, four Alabama State Hornets men’s basketball players received a total of $2,000 to fix the outcome of a December 2024 contest against Southern Mississippi. Amarr Knox, Shawn Fulcher, Corey Hines and Tony Madlock were named as the participating players.

NCAA says 4 Alabama State men’s basketball players threw a game vs. Southern Mississippi for $500 each https://t.co/tkUy7Dl1Oe

— Mark Story (@markcstory) June 5, 2026

Fulcher was deemed to be the main contact who liaised with bettors on this matter, and allegedly put his other teammates into a group chat with a bettor. Madlock and his teammates joined a FaceTime with the bettor during the morning of the Southern Mississippi, with the former disclosing that he would not be available to play in that contest due to injury.

Both players received $700 for their information and cooperation, while Knox and Hines each received $300.

Only Knox admitted to the arrangement, while the other players either denied it or have refused to be interviewed on the topic.

All four players are not currently competing in college basketball, but the NCAA ruled them permanently ineligible in conjunction with the findings of their investigation.

The story carries a little more weight when considering that Knox, Hines and Madlock were the Hornets’ three leading scorers during the 2024-2025 campaign. The school qualified for the NCAA tournament that season as a 16-seed.

The NCAA Committee on Infractions Panel was spearheaded by Steve Waterfield, Norman Bay and Susan Lipnickey.

In a statement, the school wrote, “Alabama State University was made aware of an NCAA inquiry in January and has since been notified of the negotiated resolution related to sports betting allegations involving former Hornet men’s basketball student-athletes. Although the institution is not a party to this case, it fully cooperated with the NCAA throughout this matter.”

The statement continued, “Alabama State University, its athletics program, and its personnel remain committed to integrity and compliance and will continue to operate with transparency.”

This Alabama State sports betting thing just keeps bothering me. I see there has been a lot of discourse about it in the HBCU world.

I wrote about the deeper implications for HBCUs and their players here: https://t.co/qpInnnzNnu pic.twitter.com/4slfMqKcvV

— HBCU Media Wizard (@stevenjgaither) June 8, 2026

Author Brian Tuohy has studied sports gambling and the mechanics necessary to fix a game and doesn’t think it’s too difficult.

“I think it’s very easy to fix a game, especially in college sports. All you need is access to a player, a coach, a referee and a reason,” he said.

While Tuohy’s opinion is a concerning one for sports fans, he believes the buck stops with the governing bodies who oversee sports on both the professional and collegiate level.

“The organizations that should be looking for this, the NCAA, leagues, media, even law enforcement, historically haven’t made it a priority,” he said. “If nobody’s really searching for it, it becomes much easier to get away with.”

Alabama State basketball has not received discipline on this matter to date, and it will be interesting to see if the NCAA finds culpability with the program.