By Adam Lucas

It's basketball season, so I feel that I should explain my behavior. Also, possibly, apologize for it.

North Carolina is the preseason number-one team in the nation this season. This is perfect. It is exactly what I have wished for over these last three seasons. The Tar Heels will have a team that will be national contenders. This will be fantastic, because it means that on the vast majority of nights, they will play like men, and we will rejoice in the slaughters to which they lead another helpless opponent.

The only problem is that on a very few nights, they will play like 20-year-olds, and we will wonder why we watch these games because these kids Just Don't Get It and in the old days there used to be Pride in Wearing the Carolina Jersey and some of those things that happened on the court Coach Smith Never Would Have Allowed. All of these, of course, are things we say after close wins. We'll get to the losses later.

At some point over the next five months, please accept that I will likely utter all of the following phrases:

“Give it to Marcus!”

“Can someone other than Marcus score?”

“Put a body on him!”

“Don't pick up those silly fouls!”

“Call a timeout!”

“Why don't we have any timeouts left?”

(Scratch that last one. We know that isn't happening.)

“I love how much emotion Brice brings to the game.”

“Brice has to get back on defense and stop screaming after every dunk!”

“This is the most important stretch of the season.” (Said multiple times)

“How do you think this game will affect NCAA Tournament seeding?” (Said in December)

I will lay awake after a close loss. I will lay awake after a close win. After both, I will eventually cope by turning on the recording of the game and watching it again. Yes, I do already know what happened. No, it doesn't matter.

At some point, in some game, a Duke win will potentially help the Tar Heels in the ACC/national race. I will try to cheer for the Blue Devils. It will not work.

I will complain about the Smith Center attendance.

Carolina will once again finish among the top programs in the nation in attendance.

I will chant for biscuits.

I will not actually go get the biscuits.

I will still chant for biscuits at the next game.

At some point in the next five months, I will become irrationally convinced that my pen/notebook/shirt/pants/route to the Smith Center/pregame meal is the sole reason the Tar Heels—a team ranked No. 1 in the nation—are winning. I will not change it. I am not superstitious, just careful.

The things I will say to my television…I am not proud of them.

Carolina will lose a game. This is going to happen.

(I secretly hope my stealthy reverse jinx above actually means the Tar Heels will go undefeated, and you can all thank me in April.)

I will begin trying to figure out NCAA Tournament possibilities in December. The bracket projections that are released then will have absolutely no similarity to the actual bracket in March. I will get irrationally upset about one of them anyway.

I will forget some important detail of life—a birthday of a blood relative, the time to pick up a child, eating a meal—because I am concerned about something much bigger, such as Carolina's depth on the wing.

I will eat full meals at absurd times, often 1 a.m., while watching the tape of the 9 p.m. game that was just played.

I will nod and smile in agreement to things people say to me during games and later have no recollection that they ever spoke to me, because I am not paying attention to them in the slightest since their name is not Roy Williams .

At some point someone will say, “Do you really need to be that obsessed with Carolina basketball?” And I will feel a little sorry for them, because they don't get it, and they don't understand that on any day, at any moment this could happen:

Or this:

Or this:

I will laugh.

I will cry.

I may break something, but not without extreme provocation, such as Creighton.

It's November, Carolina is No. 1 in the country, and there are potentially 40 opportunities to watch Tar Heel basketball over the next five months. This could be the type of season for which other programs wait a lifetime. The Tar Heels have waited four years, which feels like a lifetime.

It's going to be exhilarating and breathtaking and all-consuming.

I apologize to everyone else. See you in April.