Va Tech PG Hysier Miller Dismissed Amid Reported Temple Gambling Probe

Timothy Rapp@@TRappaRTFeatured Columnist IVOctober 23, 2024

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Virginia Tech guard Hysier Miller, who transferred from Temple in the offseason, was dismissed from the Hokies’ men’s basketball team on Wednesday due to “circumstances prior to his enrollment at Virginia Tech,” according to a school statement.

Miller’s former school, Temple, has been the subject of an NCAA investigation into unusual betting patterns last season, and Pat Forde of SI.com reported that “it’s unclear what vetting Virginia Tech did of Miller’s time at Temple, but sources say new information came to light earlier this month regarding the probe at Temple.”

Miller averaged 15.9 points, four assists and 3.6 rebounds per game for the Owls last season, shooting 35.3 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from three. He had 20 or more points in three of the team’s five games during the AAC Tournament, including 32 points and six assists during an 85-69 loss to UAB in the title contest.

In one of the games that gambling watchdog company U.S. Integrity flagged for unusual gambling activity, however—a March 7 matchup with UAB that saw the line move from UAB (-1.5) to UAB (-8) on the day of the game—Miller scored just eight points and had three turnovers.

It was the second straight game Temple finished far off the spread. In the previous contest, the Owls were 5.5-point favorites over Tulsa but lost by five. Miller scored 19 points in that contest, however.

The Athletic’s Joe Vardon and Chris Vannini reported in March that at least three other games last season “generated irregular betting patterns” outside of the UAB contest.

The first was on Feb. 8, when Temple played Memphis and originally was 6.5-point underdogs, though so much money was bet against Temple that the Owls moved to 10.5-point underdogs by tip-off. Miller had 12 points in that contest, shooting 4-of-15 from the field.

On Feb. 28, before Temple’s matchup against Rice, bettors put enough money into the unders for overall points (140.5) and first-half points (64) to drop both lines significantly on the day of the game. And the game itself easily finished below those marks, with 108 total points and 47 first-half points. Miller scored 16 points in the contest.

The third game that was marked for unusual betting patterns was the aforementioned Tulsa contest, when bettors again hammered the under on total points and first-half points on the day of the game, causing both lines to drop. The first-half points total was less then the final line, though the total points exceeded the final line but were lower than the original line.