NCAA opens probe of Sorsby's Cincinnati tenure
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- The NCAA sent a letter of inquiry to Cincinnati focused on Brendan Sorsby's time with the Bearcats, first reported by Yahoo Sports on Wednesday; Bearcats coach Scott Satterfield declined to comment at Big 12 media days.
- Sorsby was permanently ruled ineligible in May after admitting to placing thousands of impermissible sports bets totaling an estimated $90,000 across his stints at Indiana, Cincinnati, and Texas Tech.
- Betting records show Sorsby placed at least 165 impermissible wagers worth at least $38,000 in 2024 — including three bets on Cincinnati men's basketball — via a FanDuel account he shared with a friend.
- Between December 2023 and June 2025, Sorsby provided more than $60,000 to that friend for deposits into the shared account; the NCAA found no evidence he ever wagered on Cincinnati football.
- Cincinnati said it has had "continuous conversations with the NCAA" and denied any staff awareness of Sorsby's wagering, while separately suing him for breach of contract; Indiana has not received a similar letter of inquiry.
- Sorsby's agent Ron Slavin claimed Cincinnati "knew of Sorsby's gambling for two years and never said anything" — a charge the school forcefully denied.
- The Big 12 sued Texas Tech and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on June 15 over Sorsby's eligibility the same day the school announced his departure; Sorsby dropped his own lawsuit against the NCAA three days later.
Why it matters: The letter of inquiry shifts the regulatory lens from Sorsby alone to Cincinnati's program itself, where the school's institutional compliance is now under NCAA review. With Cincinnati already suing Sorsby for breach of contract and his agent publicly claiming the program knew about his betting for two years, the probe becomes the tiebreaker between the school's denial and Slavin's accusation — and Indiana's lack of a similar letter signals Cincinnati is being treated as the outlier.
