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44 years ago, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird each took their college to the NCAA Finals for a summit that will be remembered by many. The legend says that it was this year, while following the courses of Indiana State and Michigan State, that the term “March Madness” was coined! This game still holds the audience record for a basketball game with 24% market share, or 35 million viewers!
As Jackie MacMullan recounts in “Larry Bird-Magic Johnson, When the Game Was Ours,” Indiana State’s Larry Bird only led for a few minutes. The time that Jud Heathcote, the coach of the Spartans, asks for a time-out. ” We played all season to get here, we rehearsed the game plan over and over and you screw it up… Now do what I asked! Squeeze me Bird, run into him! he yelled.
An audience record never beaten!
Michigan State will respond with a 9-1 and when Jud Heathcote bets a big five with Greg Kelser, Magic Johnson, Mike Brkovich, Jay Vincent and Ron Charles, the Spartans will roll out their basketball and race to victory. ” When they started their four-on-one counterattacks, I knew we were in trouble. No one had done this to us before “says Bobby Heaton in the book.
Upon arrival, the Spartans will win 75-64 and Magic will be elected MOP (MVP in NCAA …) against a Larry Bird embarrassed by the defense of the Spartans, but also a broken thumb. It will be his only loss of the season.
Later, the two men will continue their friendly rivalry with the Celtics and the Lakers, facing each other three times in the NBA finals, and today, we can write that these two, by their rivalry therefore and especially by their talent have tilted the NBA into modernism. This is also the last rivalry to have started in the NCAA to extend to the NBA, although Pat Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon also faced each other in the NBA Finals.
In fact, there was a before and an after Magic-Bird, and so it all started at university, in 1979, on March 26th.