Former Cardinal Mooney basketball star Antonio Blakeney made headlines this week, but not for his play on the court.
He was named in a sports gambling ring that led federal prosecutors to secure indictments against 20 people for allegedly fixing college basketball games, as well as professional games in China.
According to records unsealed Thursday, Jan. 15, sports gamblers worked with players who agreed to underperform in games from 2022 to 2025 in a point-shaving scheme. The charges, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, include bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy. The fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 20 years. The bribery charges have a maximum sentence of five years.
Blakeney, who played his first two high school seasons at Cardinal Mooney before transferring to Orlando Oak Ridge, was named but not charged in the indictment. Blakeney, a former member of the Chicago Bulls, also played for the Jiangsu Dragons (2019-20), Jiangsu Dragons (2022-23) and Nanjing Monkey Kings (2023-24) in China. He is listed on the Hapoel Tel Aviv B.C. of the Israeli Premier League for the 2025-26 season.
Blakeney was the first player recruited, according to prosecutors, and after several successful outcomes in China, he went on to “recruit NCAA players who would accept bribe payments,” court papers said. Blakeney was charged separately in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in an indictment dated Oct. 17, 2024, according to a copy obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
For his role in the scheme, prosecutors say Blakeney, 29, received a one-time cash payment of $200,000, which another defendant dropped into a storage unit Blakeney had in Florida. Blakeney later went on to recruit college players to shave points in NCAA games.
The operation eventually involved 39 players on more than 17 Division I teams from 2022-2025, with bettors wagering millions of dollars on at least 29 different games, according to the indictment. Payments to players ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 per game.
Here’s more information on Antonio Blakeney.
Antonio Blakeney’s freshman year at Mooney cut short by FHSAA
Cardinal Mooney’s star freshman was declared ineligible late in the 2011-12 regular season by the FHSAA along with varsity teammate Justin Najmy and five freshman junior varsity players because they violated an FHSAA by-law by playing for a spring traveling basketball team whose manager, Dave McMahon, was a part-time assistant junior varsity coach at Cardinal Mooney.
Cardinal Mooney boys basketball coach Stefan Gates said McMahon was unaware that coaching a summer team was a violation of FHSAA rules.
Antonio Blakeney stars as a Cardinal Mooney sophomore
Blakeney was selected as the Herald-Tribune Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2013 after averaging 24.8 points per game, 7.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.1 steals. Overall, he shot 56 percent from the floor, including 62 percent from inside the arc and 38 percent from 3-point range.
Cardinal Mooney won 25 games and reached the Class 3A-Region 3 final before losing 75-53 to Community School of Naples. Blakeney was originally a football player but tried basketball at the insistence of a coach when he was in the sixth grade. By eighth grade he was no longer playing football.
“I loved the game, and I decided my freshman year in high school that basketball was what I wanted to do,” he told the Herald-Tribune at the time.
Antonio Blakeney leaves Cardinal Mooney
Blakeney left Cardinal Mooney prior to the end of the 2013 school year and landed at Oak Ridge in Orlando, where his AAU coach for E1T1 Boobie Francis was an assistant coach. Since Francis was no longer part of the Oak Ridge staff, the FHSAA cleared Blakeney to be eligible for his junior season without sitting out a season for following his AAU coach.
Blakeney heads to LSU, then the pros
The 6-foot-4 shooting guard and 5-star recruit signed with LSU out of Oak Ridge, where he averaged 14.8 points per game on 44.4% shooting from 2-15-17. After declaring for the 2017 NBA Draft after his sophomore season, Blakeney went undrafted and signed with the Bulls.
Antonio Blakeney reaches the NBA
The former HTPreps Boys Basketball Player of the Year was the 2017-18 Rookie of the Year in the NBA G League.
But in 2018, he was strictly a Chicago Bull. He signed a guaranteed two-year deal worth $2.94 million in July 2018.
On a two-way deal with the team in 2017, Blakeley divided his time between the Chicago Bulls and the Windy City Bulls of the G League. With Chicago, he played 19 games, averaging 7.9 points. With Windy City, Blakeney lit it up for 32 points per game along with 6.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.2 steals in 32 games. The performance earned him NBA G League Rookie of the Year.
He played two seasons in Chicago and averaged 7.5 points and 1.8 rebounds over 76 career games. He joined the Jiangsu Dragons for the 2019-20 season, when he averaged 34.8 points and 8.0 rebounds and shot 50% from the field.
He played one more season in the G League for the Canton Charge in 2020-21 before having stints overseas in the Bahraini Premier League, Israeli Basketball Premier League, and Chinese Basketball Association since 2022.
— USA Today reporter Steve Gardner contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Former Cardinal Mooney star named as part of basketball gambling ring
Reporting by Ed Reed, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
