You go through all those summer months waiting for basketball. You watch the game tapes from last year. You spend afternoons jotting down possible lineups, and by the time you’re on Day Three of your imaginary lineups you’ve convinced yourself eight different players could play 35 minutes because the Tar Heels just have so much depth. You watch YouTube videos of the incoming freshmen (in the old days, kids, we sometimes didn’t know who the Tar Heels had signed until the preseason magazines came out).
You do all that to get to that first exhibition game of the year, that first chance to see Carolina against another opponent, because at that point you convince yourself you'll have a good read on the Tar Heels.