ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Magic vs. The Birdman.
This was the showdown everyone in America wanted, and when Indiana State defeated DePaul and Michigan State beat Penn in the NCAA semifinals 20 years ago, it arrived.Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the two most compelling players in the country, would at last go at one another with the national title at stake.
All but ignored was DePaul coach Ray Meyer's first trip to the Final Four since 1943 and the unlikely journey to the semifinals by Ivy League representative Penn.
They were nothing more than minor obstacles in the way of the Magic-Bird show.
There had been other fascinating Final Fours -- the UCLA dynasty with 10 championships in 12 years, Indiana's undefeated 1976 champions, Texas Western's all-black team beating Kentucky's all-white team in 1966.
But rarely had there been a superstar standoff like this one.
This was not just the Sycamores vs. the Spartans. This was Bird, a 6-foot-9 shaggy-haired forward with a shot scouts dream about, vs. Johnson, a 6-foot-8 point guard, whose ball-handling and shooting skills seemed nothing less than mystical.
One was laconic, the other effusive. Bird was all business, loathe to talk about himself. Johnson was all smiles, enthusiastic all the time. Maybe it was that contrast in personalities that made this matchup so intriguing.
Johnson has said it was like two guys wanting to be the best, a couple of gunslingers facing each other down, knowing only one could survive. To this day, he loves to talk about the game but Bird is tightlipped.
"Magic has been promoting that because he won the game," Bird said. "If I won the game, you would have never heard of it. So I'm sick of it. I'm ready to move on with my life. It's been 20 years ago. I can't even remember that far back."
A year later, they would move together to the NBA and transform the league, Bird with the Boston Celtics, Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers.
But on March 26, 1979, in the Special Events Center at the University of Utah, they had one last college game, the first duel in what would become a long-standing rivalry.
"There was such an aura there that the two of them brought to the game," said Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, who was coaching Army then. "They showcased it in the same way they went on to showcase the NBA."
Indiana State arrived undefeated, perfect through 33 games -- the streak matching both players' uniform number. Bird would keep that number in the pros but Johnson had to accept 32 with the Lakers because 33 was already assigned to another pretty good player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Bird and Magic had cruised through the season in separate spheres, their paths never crossing. And that just increased the national hunger for them to meet in the final.
The Spartans were curious about Bird, who averaged 28.6 points per game and hit 53 percent of his shots. After Johnson and his buddies drubbed Penn 101-67 in their semifinal, they hung around to watch Bird work on DePaul. Playing with a broken thumb, he merely scored 35 points, missing just three of 19 shots, grabbed 16 rebounds and had nine assists in a 76-74 victory.
The Sycamores were coached by Bill Hodges, an assistant who stepped in at the start of the season after head coach Bob King had a heart attack. When Bird, a small-town guy, was overwhelmed by the size of Indiana University and left after just two weeks, it was Hodges who coaxed him to more intimate Indiana State. The payback was 1979 when he carried the Sycamores through their dream season.
Jud Heathcote was in just his third season of what would become a 19-year coaching career with Michigan State and after watching Bird take DePaul apart, he devised a matchup zone that would collapse on Bird every time he got the ball.
The day before the game, Heathcote prepared the Spartans in practice, assigning Johnson to the scout team to play the role of Bird. "You couldn't have a reserve do that," the coach explained.
Magic never missed a shot in the workout and it scared the Spartans because if the real Bird performed that way, they figured the Sycamores would win.
The game did not start well for Johnson. On Michigan State's first possession, he slipped and was called for traveling. But it was only a momentary misstep for the Spartans. After leading early, Indiana State fell behind, trailing by 16 points as Michigan State kept up the defensive pressure.
The Sycamores cut the lead to six points at 52-46 with 10 minutes to play, but Johnson spearheaded another Michigan State spurt that opened it to 11 and Indiana State never challenged again, losing 75-64.
"Coach gave us a job to do on Larry Bird and we got it done," said Johnson, who made eight of 15 shots and scored 24 points.
Bird was stalked by the zone all night and limited to just 7-for-21 shooting from the field and 19 points. Indiana State was 27-for-64 from the field and missed 12 of 22 free throws.
At the end, Bird sat on the bench, his head wrapped in a towel, while Johnson and the Spartans cut down the nets. Twenty years later, Bird is in the Hall of Fame, Magic is on his way there and the game remains etched in their memories.
"I didn't play well," Bird said. "For us to win, I had to have an extremely great game and I didn't do that. So that's why we lost.
"I just say, 'Let's forget it and move on.' We have other things to do now."
Magic has watched tapes of the game frequently and knows it almost play by play. Bird says he has never watched a replay because he has no interest in it. He still has the memories, though.
"I remember quite a bit about it," he said. "But I don't sit around every day and just because the NCAA is on TV start thinking back to when I was in college.
"It's been 20 years and a lot of things have happened."
Though it was not a classic game, the showdown did thrust the NCAA tournament into a permanent national spotlight.
"It certainly was a special moment. It changed the perception of what the tournament meant," said Connecticut's Jim Calhoun, who was coaching at Northeastern then. "The game of college basketball now has a three-week window to tell all of its great stories."
Magic and Bird translated into record television ratings of 24.1 and a 38 share for NBC, which estimated that the game was watched by 40 million people.
As America suspected, it was the beginning of a basketball rivalry that energized the NBA for the next decade.
Bird's Celtics and Johnson's Lakers won eight NBA championships between them. Three times they faced off in the finals, two going to the Lakers, one to the Celtics.
They won gold medals on the first Olympic Dream Team in 1992 and developed a warm friendship built on respect.
Still, the first time they clashed, 20 years ago this month, remains a defining moment in NCAA tournament history.