College basketball’s 30 biggest cheaters that tainted the game

26. Dewey Williams and Kenneth Dion Lee shave points at Northwestern

We briefly covered a point-shaving scandal at the University of Kentucky a few slides ago, but this one involves taking a deeper look at the players involved. In this case, that means Dewey Williams and Kenneth Dion Lee, who got caught shaving points at Northwestern in the mid-1990s.

Northwestern basketball has never been a particularly successful program, often rating towards the bottom of the Big Ten and making one NCAA Tournament appearance in school history. The bad basketball could make players susceptible to outside influences, and that is exactly what happened with Williams and Lee.

Williams and Lee were approached by gamblers during the 1995 season and paid money to fix the outcomes of three Big Ten games. In order to make the fix work, the gamblers wanted Lee and Williams to ensure that Northwestern didn’t cover the large point spreads, putting more money into their pockets after they bet heavily on the opposition.

The scheme was eventually exposed, with both Williams and Lee getting arrested before getting charged with sports bribery. Both players were sentenced to a month in prison and two years of probation after being convicted of their crimes.

Williams and Lee got off relatively lightly for their actions, and Northwestern itself didn’t receive any NCAA penalties since no one in the administration or coaching staff was involved in this scheme. This, sadly, won’t be the last instance of point shavers we will encounter on this list.