The NCAA announced on Friday that four Alabama State men’s basketball players engaged in match-fixing for the purposes of winning sports bets.
The Division I Committee on Infractions panel confirmed that one former student-athlete agreed to the violations, while three either chose not to participate in the investigation or were unresponsive.
Key Takeaways
- The four individuals were offered a total of $2,000 for their endeavors.
- Two of the four provided false or misleading information to the NCAA during its investigations.
- Alabama State won its first March Madness game when all four were all on the team.
Armarr Knox, Shawn Fulcher, Corey “CJ” Hines and Tony Madlock are not currently competing in NCAA sports and are no longer members of the Alabama State basketball program.
The NCAA’s enforcement staff was contacted by Temple University in July 2025 after they were contacted by the FBI regarding Hines, who transferred during the summer. According to the NCAA’s announcement, the FBI provided text messages detailing breaches of match integrity from Hines’ time at Alabama State.
In interviews with Knox in October 2025 and January 2026, he told the NCAA that Fulcher in December 2024 put himself and his teammates in a group chat with one of two known sports bettors. He also claimed that the bettor offered to pay the student-athletes if they threw their game against Southern Mississippi the following evening.
Knox went on to state that the second known bettor paid a total of $2,000 to the student-athletes. In accepting these payments and fixing their performances, all four student-athletes committed Level I violations of the NCAA’s ethical conduct rules.
Both bettors were indicted on Jan. 14 by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on wire fraud and bribery charges.
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Failure to cooperate
The NCAA interviewed Fulcher in addition to Knox, although he was reportedly not as helpful.
The enforcement staff found that he provided false or misleading information by denying communication with the sports bettors, sharing information with the bettors, and also gambling on sports himself. Records show that he was paid for sharing information via phone call, and also bet on sports by using a daily fantasy site.
An attorney for Hines told the NCAA in January 2026 that he wanted to participate in an interview as part of the investigation. However, he was also found to have provided false or misleading information about the call and sharing information with sports bettors, and he did not provide a log of his text message history when it was requested.
Madlock, who was out of eligibility after the 2024-25 season, did not grant the NCAA an interview.
Failing to cooperate with an investigation, as both Fulcher and Knox did, also represents a Level I violation.
Fulcher and Hines were indicted by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on several fraud charges for their involvement with the Southern Mississippi game. Individuals with remaining college eligibility also had that stripped, and can only be reinstated by the NCAA.
Tarnishing a legacy
Knox, Hines and Madlock were the three leading scorers at Alabama State during the 2024-25 season, which culminated in the program's fifth appearance in March Madness. Fulcher was a reserve.
Knox was memorialized in program history after he scored a go-ahead layup with one second remaining in a First Four matchup with Saint Francis, which secured Alabama State’s first-ever March Madness win. None of the players were on an active team last year.
