I can’t believe I’m about to type this sentence, but: I’m having a really hard time investing in college basketball this year.

I know, I KNOW. I can’t believe it either; I’ve loved Carolina basketball in a stupid way as long as I’ve known there was Carolina basketball to love and college basketball as a whole almost as long, but this year, there haven’t been as many games early that have captivated me. Duke/Arizona State, maybe; the Michigan/Creighton overtime game; all the Kentucky close calls in sort of a clinical “lolololol Coach Cal” fashion. But I’m having a hard time investing the way I normally do, and it’s weird and I don’t like it. I mean, I forgot the team was playing last night until the Paternal Unit called and reminded me.

And I think it has to do with the Carolina team.

I have nothing against any of them personally; I’m sure all the babies are nice boys, I love Marcus Ginyard and Deon Thompson madly, I will always love and respect The Roy. But.

But.

I’ve been here before. I’ve been here for a rebuilding year, literally here — in April 2005, Carolina won the national title and I stood on our back porch in Chicago and cried and used my office pool winnings to pay my grad school deposit, and in August 2005, I moved to the CH. I moved to Chapel Hill with last year’s seniors, and I watched them and cried over them and loved them desperately and stupidly for four years, while they marched on their own way to their own title. So I’ve lived a whole cycle in the lifespan of Carolina basketball in the NC, and it’s … hard.

Because this year’s team is amazing in their own right, so much contained potential, but they’re not the team that followed the 2005 champs. Even if they win their own title, and I don’t doubt that they could and might do that, they wouldn’t be the class of 2009.

And no offense to George Lynch and the ’93 champs, but the class of 2009 will forever be my favorite class of basketball players at Carolina.

So I’m watching all the games that ESPN will give me, and I’m feeling patient with and forgiving of Carolina, but it’s all through some kind of screen, some kind of haze. I didn’t expect to have to take a year; I never have after a title before. But I’m not used to getting them so close together; and I’m not used to living in North Carolina when Tyler Hansbrough doesn’t wear #50 for the Tar Heels.

I love this team and I wish them nothing but the best, but I can’t and won’t ever care about them the same way I cared about last year’s team. It’s unfair and it makes me a little sad, but … that’s my team. That’s the team I was here for. Those are the victories in Cameron and the losses in Lawrence Joel and the title that belong to me.

Funny enough, I ended up spending most of yesterday reading Roy Williams’ new autobiography/memoir; and like 2009 was my team, Roy is my coach — I grew up with Dean Smith, suffered steadfastly through the Guthridge and Doherty years (I was actually an total Doherty apologist, and still am), but Roy, when Roy came home, it was at a point in my life when I knew I was getting ready to come back to North Carolina. In 2000, when he stayed at Kansas, my dear college friend the Grandmaster, a lifelong Jayhawks fan, was overjoyed and I cried buckets; in 2003, we were reversed, and I still know I got the better end of the deal.

Roy’s book is excellent, if you’re into Carolina basketball. If you’re not, well, of course it isn’t — but if you are, it’s worth reading.