This Day in Sports History: Magic Johnson Leads Michigan State Over Larry Bird, Indiana State

Michigan State met Indiana State in the 1979 national title game, the first meeting between the two future NBA greats.

The first of many epic meetings between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird occurred on March 26, 1979. The showdown came in the national championship, in what remains the highest-rated TV college basketball game ever, when Johnson led his Michigan State Spartans to a 75-64 victory over Bird's Indiana State Sycamores.

Johnson scored 24 points in the win, while Bird notched just 19 points, his lowest scoring game all NCAA tournament, and hauled in 13 rebounds in the loss. 

"I thought every shot Bird took would go in,” Spartans coach Jed Heathcote said afterward. 

“We defended him with an adjustment and a prayer."

“You never get over that. It’s impossible to get over it, when you get your heart broken," Bird said years later. "I knew going into that game that I was going to have to play the best game I’d ever play in my life, and I didn’t do it. I let us all down.”

With the loss, Indiana State became the eighth undefeated team to reach the NCAA final, and just the second at that point to lose in the championship.

Johnson and Bird would later meet in three NBA Finals, with the former's Lakers holding a 2-1 head-to-head advantage in those series. 

In their respective NBA careers, Johnson would finish with five NBA titles and three Finals MVP awards, while Bird took home three championships and two Finals MVP awards.

Outside basketball, their friendship wasn't immediate—the complexities were eventually detailed in a Broadway show. Some of that tension stemmed from their competitiveness. 

“We were trying to beat each other year after year,” Bird wrote in his 2009 autobiography, When the Game Was Ours. “People kept comparing us. I wanted what he had, so I didn’t want to get to know him, because I knew I’d probably like him, and then I’d lose my edge.”