Former New Orleans guard Cedquavious “Dae Dae” Hunter — one of six former Division I men’s basketball players the NCAA deemed permanently ineligible earlier this month, after investigators found they attempted to fix games and told gamblers how they planned to manipulate their performances — said Monday that he was “money hungry” for “fast cash” in his first public comments since being banned.
“I just had a child, and the school wasn’t paying me money,” Hunter said on “Good Morning America,” “so I was trying to get money to actually take care of my child.”
NCAA investigators found that players from three different schools — New Orleans, Mississippi Valley State and Arizona State — were involved in separate schemes related to point shaving. (The NCAA implicated only the players involved, not their schools or any employees.) In Hunter’s case, the NCAA recovered text messages between him and teammate Dyquavian Short off Short’s phone, “in which Short and Hunter discussed receiving $5,000 and plans to go shopping at Sak’s Fifth Avenue the next day. Phone logs from the student-athletes also identified FaceTime calls on that same day with a known bettor flagged by sports book operators.”
In total, the NCAA found that Hunter and Short (and fellow teammate Jamond Vincent) manipulated their performances in seven games last season.
Hunter admitted Monday that he lied to the NCAA during its investigation.
“I told them I wasn’t doing it. I told them I didn’t know anything, but the whole time, I knew. I knew everything,” Hunter said. “I was trying to lie because I thought I was going to get my way out of it.”
Hunter explained that he, Short and Vincent had a specific phrase — “it’s time” — during games to indicate to one another when it was time to begin altering their performances.
“I’d go out there and I’d do my best shooting the ball, but not actually trying to make it, but making it,” Hunter said. “Like, make a couple and miss a couple.”
Asked if he was worried about the consequences of failing and bets not cashing, Hunter added that, “95 percent, we were gonna get the job done.”
The NCAA’s ban on Hunter and five others came two months after the governing body announced in September that it was investigating the activities of 13 players from six different schools: New Orleans, Arizona State, Temple, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina A&T and Eastern Michigan.
In late October, the NCAA also deemed three former Eastern Michigan players — Jalin Billingsley, Da’Sean Nelson and Jalen Terry — permanently ineligible for refusing to cooperate with investigators looking into potential violations. (All three had already exhausted their NCAA eligibility.)
The NCAA has not acknowledged any link between the activities under investigation and two recent federal indictments involving illegal gambling among former and current NBA players. The Athletic previously reported that federal investigators have neither contacted nor shared any information with the association.
Hunter finished his remarks by expressing remorse for his actions, saying explicitly that one day he’ll tell his child, “Don’t do what Daddy did. Don’t follow my steps and don’t do the same thing I did. Don’t make the mistake I made.”