1979 College Basketball Championship: March Madness Magic

On March twenty six, nineteen seventy nine, the national Championship between Michigan State and in the United State, which changed the college basketball world forever and March Madness became something everyone wanted to see. Today, we dive into this historic moment on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. So, going back to the nineteen seventies, college basketball was much different. There wasn't one in Dune's freshmen going straight to the NBA. It wasn't till nineteen seventy two that freshmen could even play, and it wasn't covered like it is today. March Madness, the brackets, everything that we know about college basketball and the championship was very different. But two very different players and very different personalities took the nation by storm and became some one of the first college superstars. Larry Bird was more of this quiet white kid from the country known as the Hick from French Lick started his career under Bob Knight at Indiana as a freshman, but left before even playing a game because the spotlight was too big, and after taking a year off wound up at Indiana State, a quiet kid that'll just let his skills on the basketball court and do all the talking. When he got to Indiana State, they were a below average team. They hadn't been good since John Wooden used to coach there before he left for UCLA. His first season, they barely got over five hundred, but that's when he started to take over his sophomore year, leading him to a twenty five and three record and scoring over thirty two points a game. His junior year, he again led them to a great record, scoring over thirty points a game, which led the Boston Celtics to actually draft him after this year. Back then, the rules were a little different. They drafted him and he actually told them he was going to stay for his final year in college. They would just hold on to the rights as long as they signed him before the next draft. He came back to the Estate only because the coaches agreed to not let him have to deal with the media a lot vice versa. There was Magic Johnson, also standing at six ' nine, but he played point guard rather than the normal four position At someone in that size. The way he moved with the ball in his hand was like Magic, a reporter said when he was in high school, which is why Irving Johnson is now known as Magic Johnson and that name has stuck with him ever since. So partly that unique nickname led to his popularity, but it was also his skills on the basketball court, in his giant smile and personality that led people to enjoy him in a different way than they enjoyed Larry Bird. His freshman season at Michigan State seventeen points, seven rebounds, and seven assists, and did the same his sophomore year, and when he talked to the media, everyone wanted to listen and hear what he had to say. So by the end of the nineteen seventy ninth season, both players had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated, both in different ways. When Larry Bird was on, they just talked about him as he gave no quotes, but Irving was all about talking and giving all the quotes he could give and enjoying the spotlight. What we made this game even more exciting was that Indiana State came into the tournament undefeated, and we're going for an undefeated season, which was last done by Indiana in nineteen seventy six. And hasn't been done since. But whenever there's an undefeated team, it brings new elements of excitement for the NCAA, and that's exactly what it did. More people were watching, more people were talking about it, and the two very contrasting stars on each team was something everyone talked about. Everyone had someone they cinged on too. They related to someone in the small, upstart school that was trying to go for an undefeated season, and some wanted the bigger school that had way more talent. So we come to the actual game, which was hosted at the University of Utah. It was the last time they actually had the game played on a college campus, mainly because this game helped make the tournament so much more popular than it was before, and it was televised by NBC and eventually got a rating of twenty four point one, which is the highest of any basketball game ever, any not just college, NBA Olympics, I need basketball game And this was the most popular game ever by TV standards, twenty percent more than the previous game because it had two superstars, but in person, they only had about fifteen thousand fans, which seemed small by today's standards. Remember it MU was to be played at the University of Utah, not at one of these big arenas that we have today. But from the start of the game, Michigan State really took control. Michigan State had four players that would eventually play in the NBA, compared to only two on Indiana State, so they were battling the whole time, but just couldn't catch up to the skill of Michigan State. After the first half, they were down thirty seven to twenty eight and it never got any better. The second half was closer and they were essentially trading baskets blow for blow, but Indiana State didn't have any firepower to really help bridge the gap, and the game ended seventy five to sixty four. But you never really felt like Indiana was out of the game, that they couldn't have a chance to come back. It's just they didn't ever have that run that you needed. Magic Johnson finished with twenty four points and Larry Bird only had nineteen. It wondering what Larry Birds were shooting games, which partly led to their downfall in the game, and they were not able to finish their undefeated season. But after the game, both Larry Bird, who was a senior went on to the NBA, and Magic Johnson actually left early after his sophomore year. It was the number one pick by the Lakers, and the fact that they both went to teams that were already of rivals in the NBA extended their rivalry and made this game even more meaningful throughout the rivalry they had in the nineteen eighties in the NBA. Now it's called a rivalry, but Larry Bird and Magic Johnson weren't really right off the court. They were actually good friends and still talk to this day. But this game changed a lot for the NCAA with it added interest. They added more teams to the tournament and decided to change the venues to larger arenas so more people could come, and made March Madness the thing we all love to this day. Thank you for listening to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese. If you like this, please let us know wherever you're listening, leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you, or you can send us an email at Daily Sports History at gmail dot com. We'd love to hear how you're enjoying the show, or if you have a great topic that we should do in the future. We're community here and we want to grow our community of great sports historians as we continue to learn about sports history every day and come back tomorrow for more daily sports history. One