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One day last October, Bubba Cunningham, the athletic director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, made the short walk from his office to the Dean E. Smith Center, where the men’s basketball team was holding a noon practice, and took a seat at one end of the stands. He wanted to see how the Tar Heels were coming together for the upcoming season, though he already had an idea: The Associated Press ranked them first in the nation in its preseason poll.