Notre Dame uses (insert horrible Irish pun here) to win first ACC game

Jan 4, 2014; South Bend, IN, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish guard Eric Atkins (0) and head coach Mike Brey wait to be interviewed after Notre Dame defeated the Duke Blue Devils 79-77 at the Purcell Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

I am not entirely sure what is going to be worse. Will it be Texas Longhorns fans and this whole Charlies Strong debacle or low-level bloggers like myself using horrible, often ill-fated Irish puns to describe Notre Dame Fighting Irish games? Either way it is going to be all kinds of awful for everyone involved.

For the Irish, however, they have more important things to do than worry about the milkman, the paperboy or the evening TV. They, meaning the Fighting Irish, have to navigate their first trip through the ACC and battling new foes.

To make matters even more interesting, Notre Date was jumping into the league head first. The Irish’s very first in-conference game was to be against the mighty, Dick Vitale loved and nationally polarizing but also revered, Duke Blue Devils.

Oddly enough — well, it only being odd depending on your viewpoint — the Irish were able to go into the Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center and come away with a hard fought, but good victory.

Nationally, at least I think, this game is going to come off as a huge upset. Notre Dame has been teetering around the mediocre expectation level this season and Duke is, well, Duke — who also has a front-runner to win the NPOY, Jabari Parker.

Fast-forward a few hours after tip, though, and no one is talking about upsets or Player of the Years or bad puns or even a not even cleverly disguised Full House reference. Nope. Instead, the most attention is being paid to Coach K’s decision as to how he played Parker down the stretch — and yes, we get it, that is the bigger story.

But come on. How about some love for the Fighting Irish? If this were their football team ESPN would be throwing them a parade, Regis Philbin would be having a celebratory colonoscopy in the morning and blogs would be exploding with pageview friendly content. Alas, maybe it is only the college basketball die-hards who care about this game.

Really, it makes no matter either. If we were to be completely honest with each other — which we should do, because we are friends — this game will likely have no real impact on the ACC as a whole or either programs’ NCAA Tournament standing. As Rob Dauster of CBT points out, Coach K coaches for March and his decisions are not to win games right now, but for games that matter more.

I do think this is a big win for Notre Dame and should get a little more pub than it has, though. Still, it is just a win, in January, against a Duke team with multiple losses, whose best player would have had an easier time impregnating an amputated lobster than making a jumper on Friday night.

Sadly, unfortunately, (add any more negative adjectives here), these two teams won’t meet again in the regular season. So, unless they find each other in the ACC Tournament we may never know what the outcome would be like if Parker had the ability to not only hang out with an amputated lobster, but also make some jumpers.