It was on this date 30 years ago, March 26, 1979, that the 1978-79 NCAA Men's basketball championship was decided between Michigan State and Indiana State and featured two legends of the game, Michigan State's Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Indiana State's Larry Bird. Of course, after their college days, their rivalry would continue as both would go on to have classic battles in the NBA throughout the 1980s with several Lakers-Celtics NBA Finals matchups and improved the NBA's standing in the mainstream (in the early 1980s, NBA Finals games were aired late at night, on tape-delay, until later in the decade when they were finally aired live due to the league's increasing popularity).
The 1979 NCAA title game itself wasn't exactly thrilling, with Michigan State winning 75-64. However, the meeting of Magic-Bird propelled the game to be the highest-rated game in the history of basketball (either pro or college), earning a whopping 24.1 Nielsen TV rating. This rating still remains to be the largest to-date.
This month, CBS Sports analyst Seth Davis released a book about the classic game entitled When March Went Mad.
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