When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [25]
"Some of those kids just didn't understand that Larry had elevated them to a height they never in their lives would have reached without him," Behnke said. "They were on a trip of a lifetime, but a couple of them were too jealous to enjoy it."
"Somebody asked me once how I felt about all that," Bird said. "I told them, 'Hell, I'm jealous of them too. I'm jealous because I never got to play with a Larry Bird.'"
Bird was an imposing figure, even to his friends. When it came to basketball matters, they warily conformed to what their star demanded. It was clear who the leader of the team was, "and if one of them got out of line, they'd be stopped," Larry said.
During one practice early in the season, a couple of ISU players were horsing around instead of conducting the drills outlined by Hodges. Before the coach had to admonish them, his star player took care of it.
"If you don't want to be here, then get the hell out," Bird shouted.
When he wasn't playing, Bird was content to be just another guy on campus. He was at his happiest when they went down to the local college hangout, the BallyHo, and threw back a couple of drafts. When ISU played St. Louis, Hodges arranged for the team to take a side trip to the city zoo, where the players walked around wearing their cowboy hats and licking ice cream cones and making faces at the gorillas. "Like a bunch of little middle school kids," Nicks said.
The team loved their trips to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they frequented an all-you-can-eat spaghetti factory that offered several varieties of pasta and excellent saucy meatballs. The other highlight was being taken out to dinner after a big win by Bird's friend Max Gibson when he came to town. On those nights the players knew they were going to enjoy the biggest and best meal of the year.
Indiana State's final regular season game was against Wichita State, the only time all year the Sycamores were on national television. A major snowstorm enveloped Terre Haute, and when the team went to the arena to conduct their shoot-around on game day, the roof was leaking.
"It was snowing like crazy," Bird said. "I felt sure they'd cancel the game."
Georgia Bird weathered the near-whiteout conditions to arrive at the Hulman Center and report that the roads were slippery, barely plowed, and most definitely unsafe.
The teams played anyhow. Bird scored 49 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in front of a full house with Al McGuire offering breathless commentary courtside.
By the time the conference tournaments wrapped up, both Indiana State and Michigan State were awarded first-round byes in the NCAA tournament. The only way their paths would cross was if both teams advanced to the Final.
But first the Spartans needed to eliminate a Lamar team, coached by the colorful Billy Tubbs. Michigan State destroyed them, 95–64, behind Magic's triple-double—13 points, 10 assists, and 17 rebounds.
In his postgame press conference, Coach Tubbs strode up to the podium and tore up a fistful of papers. It was the scouting report he had purchased from Bill Bertka's respected scouting service, Bertka's Views. Bertka, a veteran coach and scout who has been involved in the Lakers organization for more than 30 years, had identified the Spartans as a half-court team that walked the ball up the floor.
"Obviously Bertka couldn't see all the games himself, so he hired high school coaches to scout teams for him," Heathcote said. "Well, the high school coach that scouted us came to our game at Indiana. Bob Knight knew we wanted to run, so every time the ball went up he sent four guys running back to midcourt. We never could get our fast break going, so I told Earvin, 'Scrap it. Just walk it up.'"
From there, the Spartans rolled 87–71 over Louisiana State, then punched their ticket to the Final Four by upending Notre Dame, which was loaded with seven future NBA draft picks: Bill Laimbeer, Orlando Woolridge, Kelly Tripucka, Bill Hanzlik, Bruce Flowers, Tracy Jackson, and Rich Branning.
Heathcote told