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The 1979 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game was the final of the 1979 NCAA Division I basketball tournament and determined the national champion for the 1978–79 season. [ a ] The game was held on March 26, at the Special Events Center (now the Jon M. Huntsman Center ) at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City , Utah .
Johnson and Bird were first linked as rivals after Johnson's Michigan State Spartans squad defeated Bird's Indiana State Sycamores team in the 1979 NCAA finals. The rivalry continued in the NBA, and reached its climax when Boston and Los Angeles met in three out of four NBA Finals from 1984 to 1987, with the Lakers winning two out of three Finals.
Magic Johnson at the Lakers championship rally, June 1980. The 1979-80 NBA season was the Lakers' 32nd season in the NBA and the 20th season in Los Angeles. It featured a 20-year old rookie Magic Johnson leading the Lakers to their seventh NBA Championship (second in Los Angeles), defeating the Philadelphia 76ers led by Julius Erving in six games in the NBA Finals, which was the first NBA ...
[6] [7] Both Johnson and Bird would enter the NBA in the fall of 1979, and the rivalry between them and their teams (respectively, the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics) was a major factor in the league's renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. The game also led to the "modern era" of college basketball, as it introduced a nationwide audience ...
The Trans America Athletic Conference began play, with eight original members. It was renamed the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2001.; Indiana State senior forward Larry Bird and Michigan Spartans sophomore point guard Earvin "Magic" Johnson emerged as two highly popular and successful players during the season, and their rivalry — culminating in a meeting in the national championship game ...
Magic Johnson's performance in Game 6 and the series earned him the 1980 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP). What made Johnson's performance even more remarkable was that he was an NBA rookie—and, indeed, one who had left college after only two years, and was only 20 years old. "Jamaal Wilkes had an unbelievable game", said Johnson in 2011.
Magic Johnson was voted Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. After two years in college, in which he averaged 17.1 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 7.9 assists per game, Johnson declared for the 1979 NBA draft .
32 Magic Johnson, G, 1979–91 and 1995–96; ... statistics/records are correct as at the end of ... Most defensive rebounds (since 1973–74), playoffs. Magic ...