Notre Dame Owns Duke

For all of the talk about the lack of defense being played by Notre Dame, it didn’t matter Saturday afternoon against the Duke Blue Devils.

Jan 16, 2016; Durham, NC, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish forward Bonzie Colson (35) shoots against the Duke Blue Devils in their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports /

There has been a well noted amount of tension regarding the Notre Dame basketball team thus far this season. The Fighting Irish have kind of stumbled and fallen on an 11-5 record before facing Duke at Cameron Indoor. They have had the losses that just don’t sting the heart, but bury NCAA tournament chances (Indians, Alabama, Pitt, etc.).

It starts to feel like most of that doesn’t matter when the record gets improved to 12-5 with a 95-91 victory over Duke in their own house. In fact, all of a sudden, Irish fans can start looking at the rest of the schedule and the upcoming ACC Tournament, and develop a sense of confidence- the same type of confidence that the team displayed while taking down the Blue Devils despite going down 8-0 off the jump, and trailing Duke at the half 50-45.

And why shouldn’t they have been confident? Notre Dame has now won 4 out of the last five versus the Duke Blue Devils, the defending National Champions. Coach Krzyzewski has only lost 4 games against former assistants- and (obviously) Mike Brey is the only one that has done it.

Basically, right now… Notre Dame OWNS Duke basketball and it feels AMAZING. This is on the same basic level of ownage that would be felt if the Notre Dame football team had won 4 out of the last 5 versus Alabama. More importantly for right now, a win like this on the road just proves that this Notre Dame team that has been struggling to find some chemistry all season long after losing Grant and Connaughton, is still talented enough to win big games and can still do some damage in the post season.