What we know — and don’t know — about the investigation into gambling irregularities around Temple men’s basketball

An investigation into unusual wagering activity surrounding the Temple men’s basketball program is underway after a gambling watchdog organization flagged irregularities ahead of the school’s Thursday night game vs. UAB.

UAB went from around a two-point favorite to as high as an eight-point favorite over a span of just a few hours Thursday afternoon, an unusual occurrence in the absence of major injury news around the Temple program. The Blazers romped Temple, 100-72, at Temple’s Liacouras Center.

The watchdog group U.S. Integrity alerted the abnormal activity to sportsbooks, and, according to a Sports Illustrated report, the Owls have been under a watchful eye “for a while.”

Temple, the American Athletic Conference, and U.S. Integrity remain tight-lipped about the investigation, and a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board said the agency received the alert and is reviewing the matter.

Here’s what we know and don’t know:

“We are aware of the social media posts regarding last night’s men’s basketball game,” Chad Cooper, a spokesperson for the basketball team, said in a statement. “We will review the reports thoroughly in accordance with university and NCAA policies. While we can’t comment any further at this time, we take this matter very seriously.”

Asked what communications the school received from U.S. Integrity and the AAC, Cooper responded via email: “We don’t have any further comment at this time, however the university is committed to cooperating fully in any potential review.”

“We can confirm that we are clients of U.S. Integrity,” AAC spokesperson Tom Fenstermaker said in an email late Thursday night. “That is all the comment we will have at this time.”

Asked for further comment Friday, Fenstermaker said the AAC would be “politely declining to comment at this time.”

According to the company’s website, U.S. Integrity identifies “suspicious behavior by analyzing changes in betting data against a benchmark of normal betting activity. We monitor the data to see if discrepancies coincide with notable player or coaching events, reveal officiating abnormalities, or are indicative of the misuse of insider information.”

The organization has partnered with many professional sports leagues and NCAA conferences and also provides education to those entities.

In an emailed statement, the company said it “cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.”

U.S. Integrity was involved in catching the suspicious gambling activity in 2023 around the Alabama baseball program that eventually led to the firing of Brad Bohannon, the team’s coach. It also participated in an investigation into a Nov. 4 college football game between UNLV and New Mexico. That contest saw similar unusual line movement. UNLV opened as a nine-point favorite and the line eventually jumped to 16.5. UNLV routed New Mexico, 56-14. According to the Las Vegas-Review Journal, the investigation into the unusual activity surrounding that game found “no evidence of nefarious sports betting activity,” despite “an unusual amount” of new accounts created at BetMGM and abnormally large amounts of money being wagered on a Mountain West football game.

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It’s unclear right now what investigators are looking into, and it’s too early in the investigation to speculate on what happened. It’s possible, like the UNLV-New Mexico investigation, that nothing major comes from the probe.

But the Sports Illustrated report that says Temple has been raising eyebrows for a while, citing an anonymous source, does line up with recent social media chatter in the sports betting space around recent Temple games.

There was similar rapid line movement ahead of Temple’s game with Memphis, a contest in which the Owls fell behind by 23 in the first half and lost, 84-77, covering a spread that reached as high as 10 points. The Owls (11-19, 4-13 AAC) have fallen behind in the first half of many of their games and had to play catch-up, the product of a team struggling through a transition year under first-year head coach Adam Fisher. Could it be something more than that? That’s what the investigation is for.

Oddsmakers do make bad lines sometimes, but in the data-driven world we inhabit, “mistakes” like Thursday night are few and far between, hence the red flags.

Temple trailed by 15 at halftime and lost by 28. The Owls were outrebounded, 41-19, and mustered just one offensive rebound.

“We weren’t ready to go, and that’s my fault,” Fisher said. “We’ll be ready on Sunday.”

Temple closes its regular season Sunday at UTSA before starting the conference tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. Asked if the game Sunday would go on as planned, Fenstermaker, the AAC spokesperson, declined any further comment.