When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball by Seth Davis - I love this book.

The dramatic story of how two legendary players burst on the scene in an NCAA championship that gave birth to modern basketball

Thirty years ago, college basketball was not the sport we know today. Few games were televised nationally and the NCAA tournament had just expanded from thirty-two to forty teams. Into this world came two exceptional players: Earvin Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Though they played each other only once, in the 1979 NCAA finals, that meeting launched an epic rivalry, transformed the NCAA tournament into the multibillion-dollar event it is today, and laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the NBA.

In When March Went Mad, Seth Davis recounts the dramatic story of the season leading up to that game, as Johnson's Michigan State Spartans and Bird's Indiana State Sycamores overcame long odds and great doubts that their unheralded teams could compete at the highest level. Davis also tells the stories of their remarkable coaches, Jud Heathcote and Bill Hodges—who were new to their schools but who set their own paths to build great teams—and he shows how tensions over race and class heightened the drama of the competition. When Magic and Bird squared off in Salt Lake City on March 26, 1979, the world took notice—to this day it remains the most watched basketball game in the history of television—and the sport we now know was born.

I love this book.
I didn't see the game - heard about it of course. This book lets you in on so much more than just the one game at the end of the season. It tells you how Magic ended up at MSU and how Bird came to be at Indiana State - it wasn't where he started college. It also gives you details about all of the teammates - some of whom, while mostly forgotten by history, were also pretty darned good basketball players. Neither Michigan State nor Indiana State, it turns out, were one man teams. This book takes you through all the important events leading up to the 1978-79 season and it takes you through the entire season. Some of the events and some of the games that occured before the final were as interesting, or more so, than the final game, so that information isn't just filler - not just stuff to take up space until you get to the main event - it's riveting reading. This book isn't a literary masterpiece, but it's a great read about a not-so-long-ago time when things were... different (I'd say better) in college basketball. These days, Bird and Magic would never meet in the championship because they both would already be in the NBA by this point in their careers - and that's a shame.

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