Betting scandal hits a different Catholic school

For those who have not been following the news, the NCAA is investigating University of San Diego's basketball program regarding possible point shaving. Any time this sort of thing pops up, it should send a chill up the spine of any BC fan.

Our basketball betting scandal of the early '80s was one of the more infamous (see Goodfellas and the SI cover). While the school recovered quickly, the legacy of that is still with us today because of the football scandal of the '90s. The football problem is especially momentous for me since I was a student at the time. TOB reminded the whole world of it in every media interview, so now gambling is tied to our sports reputation. Since then, things have been fairly serene when it comes to BC sports. My fear though is that we are so removed from the past scandals that another gambling issue could pop up again. In the NYT article linked early, a gambling expert speculates that as many as 30 NCAA basketball games a year could be impacted by shaving. Sadly I find that number perfectly believable. Even if it is not that commonplace, BC needs to pay extra attention to point shaving. If we were ever caught up in a third betting scandal, things would be terrible. Other programs would use it against us, some fans would stop supporting our players, and the media would tie us to gambling forever. Let's hope we have the right kids in place and the right adults monitoring their performance. Now just be glad that we are not San Diego.