Has it really been 30 years?
That’s what struck me when a review copy arrived at my doorstep of “When March Went Mad: The Game that Transformed Basketball” (Times Books, $26) by Seth Davis, the insightful Sports Illustrated writer and CBS college basketball analyst.
Magic vs. Bird. For the 1979 NCAA Tournament championship.
I couldn’t wait to dive into the book. What a treat. Especially with March Madness about to turn into a tizzy.
But first, I had to indulge in some daydreaming. Happens all the time, Davis told me during a recent phone interview.
“People remember where they were when they watched that game,” Davis said.
So many did. The 24.1 Nielsen rating remains the highest ever for a basketball game, college or pro. If Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird had battled 15 years later, it still would have been a heavyweight event, Davis explained. But a perfect storm of forces caused ripple effects that can never be repeated.
To put the significance of the March 26, 1979, title game into perspective, Davis said to consider this: ESPN was launched on Sept. 7, 1979, and built its foundation on the coverage of college basketball and the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament. This was the last NCAA Tournament before the formation of the Big East Conference. The size of the field for the NCAA Tournament was expanded twice between 1980 and 1985. In 1981, the NCAA registered “Final Four” as a trademark.
“And the NBA was at its lowest ebb, with nowhere to go but up,” Davis said. “These two guys went to two storied franchises and injected life into the pro game.
“With all that, I think we would have eventually gotten from there to here. But this game just came along at the exact, perfect time and accelerated everything.”
Davis’ book flows more like a novel than stodgy reference material, a credit to his craft. Particularly fun is gaining an appreciation of the similarities (Midwesterners, both wore No. 33, skilled big men who could pass) and differences (Bird an introvert, Magic loves attention; Bird a farm boy, Magic from the inner city, etc.) between the two superstars, a compare-and-contrast thread that Davis weaves throughout.
“Before Magic and Bird, people watched the NCAA Tournament to see if anybody could beat John Wooden’s UCLA teams,” Davis said. “On that night, things changed.”
