Dick Enberg, Billy Packer: '79 NCAA Basketball Final Not So Good After All

Shame on Dick Enberg. He’s a Michigan born-and-reared kid. He ought to know better than to rain on our parade in this state.

And here I thought the 1979 Michigan State-Indiana State NCAA Final—aka Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird—was some good television.

But now here’s Enberg, trying to spoil the fun just as MSU is set to take on Kansas in a regional semifinal tonight.

“It’s almost sacrosanct to refer to it as one of the great games of all time,” Enberg, who called the game for NBC and who now works for CBS, told USA Today.

Well, nuts.

Enberg didn’t stop there. Not only should we stop holding the game in such high regard, he said, and not only wasn’t it one of the greatest finals ever, it was downright…bad.

“But had Magic and Bird been NBA busts, I don’t think we’d look back on it as a great game. It was not a great final. As I left, I had the same feeling as after Super Bowl blowouts—that it wasn’t very exciting.”

Hmph.

Enberg’s sourpuss was joined with that of broadcast partner Billy Packer, who echoed the downer words of Central Michigan University grad Enberg.

“It was one of the poorer finals games I ever broadcast,” Packer said. “What Bird-Magic eventually became made that game, not the other way around.”

Well, now that last statement of Packer’s, I can swallow.

I won’t quarrel that Magic and Bird’s NBA careers certainly added to the image of the ‘79 Final, when MSU met the Indiana State Sycamores.

The Spartans had breezed—as much as a team can “breeze” thru an NCAA tourney—thru the brackets, and waiting for them were Bird and his flock, who were 33-0.

But take it from me, who’s old enough to still recall the game (I was 15): the game wasn’t a dud.

Maybe I’m looking at it through too much of a local prism, but I seem to remember that, although the Spartans led most of the way, it was never a blowout, and Bird did his best to make sure it would never be such.

I’m perplexed and a little disappointed to hear such wet blanket words from Enberg and Packer, because it’s not like Magic and Bird weren’t already superstars at the college level. NBC I’m sure, enjoyed terrific ratings that night—the only time Magic and Bird met in college.

In other words, these guys weren’t chopped liver who became NBA Hall of Famers. They were already damn good, and that’s why the MSU-ISU game was looked forward to with so much anticipation.

Maybe Enberg and Packer expected TOO much.

But we fans expected a lot, too, and I simply don’t remember being disappointed. MSU won, 75-64, but it wasn’t until the final minutes that you could, as a Spartans fan, relax. As long as Bird lurked, no lead felt truly safe.

I’ve wondered for years if the outcome would have been different had the three-point shot been made available to Bird in 1979.