ESPN is being forced to resort to desperate measures and ridiculous publicity stunts to keep Dick Vitale from calling Duke games. For the Jan. 7 Duke-Davidson game, ESPN will bring in its NBA announcers, while moving Vitale and co. to the Heat-Nuggets game later that day.

So that means Mike Tirico, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy are going to have to do some cramming to figure out what the hell a one-and-one is, while Vitale and Dan Shulman are going to need to get used to the 24-second shot clock. But obviously, the real benefit to viewers everywhere, other than not being forced to hear Elliot Williams called a diaper dandy ever 2 minutes, is not having to deal with Vitale having an orgasm on-air anytime Duke does anything competently.

But there’s no avoiding Vitale being Vitale in his press release on calling his first NBA game since 1984.

It’s been over two decades since I’ve worked an NBA game, but basketball is basketball at all levels and a free throw is still worth a point. Seeing such talented players as Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony — two players who have gone from Diaper Dandies to Rolls Royce superstars — will bring back so many memories of their incredible performances as college standouts.

Gag me. Still, it’ll be interesting to hear Tirico, Jackson and Van Gundy call Stephen Curry take on Greg Paulus. It might me actually care about a Duke game. I’ll skip the NBA part of the double-header though.