1979 NCAA Division I basketball championship game
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. 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.
| National championship game | |||||||||||||
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| Date | March 26, 1979 | ||||||||||||
| Venue | Special Events Center, Salt Lake City, Utah | ||||||||||||
| Referees | Gary Muncy, Lenny Wirtz, Hank Nichols | ||||||||||||
| Attendance | 15,410 | ||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||
| Announcers | Dick Enberg, Billy Packer, and Al McGuire | ||||||||||||
In the game, the Indiana State Sycamores of the Missouri Valley Conference faced the Michigan State Spartans of the Big Ten Conference. The Sycamores entered the contest undefeated for the season, while the Spartans had six losses. Spartans guard Magic Johnson and Sycamores forward Larry Bird competed against each other for the first time; the pair developed a rivalry in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 1980s.
Michigan State won 75–64 to claim the school's first national championship in men's basketball. The 1979 NCAA tournament final had the highest Nielsen ratings of any game in the history of American basketball.