Arizona State Players Deny Point-Shaving

Bill Frieder, Arizona State’s basketball coach, said his players denied any involvement in point-shaving after the Nevada Gaming Control Board began an investigation of $250,000 in bets by two young men on Saturday’s Sun Devil-Washington game.

Arizona State had been favored to win its three previous games but had lost all three--by 68-56 at home to USC on Feb. 19, by 87-80 at Oregon on Feb. 24 and by 80-71 at home to Washington State Thursday. The Sun Devils had opened as 10-point favorites to beat Washington, but some sports books took the game off the board because of the heavy wagering on Washington. Arizona State missed its first 14 shots but won, 73-55, in Tempe.

“Some group of guys bet a lot of money on Washington, and we covered (the point spread),” Frieder said on Monday from Tempe, to which he returned after playing blackjack at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Sunday. “Do you think I’d be alive today if we had agreed to throw a game and then ran away with it?”

The Nevada Gaming Control Board was studying hours of surveillance tape of the two unidentified bettors. Cameras detected a third man, about 60, who stayed in the background and watched the other two place bets. The Phoenix Gazette quoted a Nevada gaming industry source who said bookies alerted the board early Saturday because the gamblers weren’t regulars.

Jim Muldoon, assistant Pacific 10 Conference commissioner, said no investigation had begun but additional information is being sought.