You stay classy, Bruce Weber.

Andy here. I know it is about as far from college basketball season as you can possibly get, but most people who know me realize that I'm pretty much always checking Peegs, no matter what time of year it is. There are a couple of basketball items that I feel compelled to post about, even out of season.

First of all, Elizabeth's Tar Heel squad had three players put their name in for the draft (Danny Green, Wayne Ellington, and Ty Lawson). Amazingly, all three decided to return. And that is in addition to Tyler "Psycho T" Hansbrough, who is in about as much hurry to leave college as Matt Leinert was. This is obviously good for UNC, who returns all starters from last year's Final Four team. The only problem with this is that it will essentially render the entire 2008-09 season useless for North Carolina. They are definitely going to make the NCAA tournament, and whatever achievements the attain, the season will be deemed a failure if they don't win the Championship. Those are some tough expectations. So good luck to all you Yankee...um...Tar Heel fans out there.

Now onto the business of less successful college teams. This article appeared in the Peoria Journal-Star on Friday. If you've already heard Bruce Weber's inane mumblings enough in your life, let me save you the trouble and copy the last comment he made in the article regarding the Big Ten race: "The league should be wide open and we can be right in the middle of it. I do know one thing, though. I think Indiana will suck. Don't put that on the Internet."

Weber is still mad about the whole Eric Gordon saga, which may have been a little fishier than I first assumed given how slimy Kelvin Sanctions ended up being. However, the point here is that Bruce should really worry about his own team and keep his thoughts on Indiana to himself. Maybe that way he wouldn't have players getting arrested for dUI, players leaving their teammates for dead, and only getting redshirted as a "punishment." Or breaking and entering and still helping the team to the National Title game.

And there's also the fact that Illinois just came off their lowest win total (16) in the past decade, and their second lowest win total of the last 30 years. After loosing two starters and only adding a few decent players, I don't see them breaking 20 wins next season, either. In spite of all of this, I hope he stays the Illinois coach for a long time, because with the coaching upgrades the Big Ten has made in the past two years, that will put Illinois securely in the bottom half of the league annually. Unfortunately, I think he'll likely get fired sometime in the next few seasons. I hope he just stays classy while it's happening.