Hoops apocalypse

North Carolina coach Roy Williams can say what he wants. You can't tell the Blob that hearts aren't going pitty-patter on the nation's college basketball sidelines these days.

This is because the FBI's stealth investigation into college buckets is continuing to collect evidence, and, according to ESPN sources, a lot of very big names could be involved. Roy Williams certainly qualifies as one of those, and North Carolina would certainly be at my epicenter if I were investigating six-figure handshakes from skeevy apparel company operatives to high-end prospects, and the college coaches/athletic deparments that get paid handsomely to pimp their gear.

Williams, after all, works at a university where academic fraud was done on his and other athletic programs' behalf for two decades. UNC all but copped to it during the NCAA's investigation. Yet somehow it squirmed off the hook on a technicality.

So, yeah. If there's corruption in college buckets, you could do worse betting Carolina will get swept  up in the FBI's probe of same.

That's not to single out Carolina, of course. The sport in general has been a laughable parody of the desired college athletics model for a long time, if one assumes that model exists anymore or ever really did. If there's money to be made from something -- and there are billions to be made by a whole lot of interested parties in Big Five football and basketball -- then money will be made. That's America, boys and girls.

And so, yeah, I think Williams and any number of other name coaches are sweating bullets as they wait for the other shoe to drop, because there's a good chance when it does it will be a seven-league boot that will crush the entire rotten edifice. However this comes out, their world is about to change, incrementally or epically. And so when they walk out there on weekend afternoons and weekday nights and the bands are playing and the student section is making the place shiver and Dickie V is over there doing his schtick, the Blob's guess is it's more of a haven than usual for them.

Because when the fans go home and Dickie V goes home and Big Monday or Titanic Tuesday or whatever is over, and they're finished wondering what their blue-chip freshman was thinking, jacking up a three in that situation ...

Well. They might just have a second or a minute or five minutes to wonder something else.

Who have they talked to?

What are they saying?

How much DID I make off that last shoe deal, and is that why (Blue Chip Freshman) came here?

But, no, these deals are perfectly legal, it's all a part of doing business as a (choose one) Big Ten/ACC/SEC/Big 12 basketball program, surely everyone knows THAT ...

Sleep well, gentlemen. Sleep well.