Free When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird Page B

tournament games with an 89–69 win over Virginia Tech and a 93–72 win over Oklahoma. Bird averaged 25.5 points and 14 rebounds in the two games, which were impressive numbers considering he had fractured his left thumb in the Missouri Valley Conference Final against New Mexico State. Behnke fashioned a makeshift splint to stabilize the thumb, but he could do little to limit the considerable pain Bird would be experiencing every time the ball made contact with the area.
    "I can't say the injury impaired him, but it had to hurt," Behnke said. "But there was never a discussion of him sitting. He was playing, no matter what. That was his mentality."
    Indiana State's final obstacle in its quest for a Final Four berth was Arkansas, led by Sidney Moncrief, Bird's former teammate in the World Invitational Tournament. The afternoon before the Arkansas game, Bird fielded a call from Auerbach, who was in town to watch the tournament and wanted Bird to come up to his hotel room for a few minutes.
    "Look, Larry," Red said, "when your team gets beat in the tournament, we'd love for you to come to Boston and finish the season with us."
    "You mean after the tournament?" Bird asked.
    "After you get beat here," Auerbach answered.

    "Well, Red, I don't think we're going to get beat," Bird answered. "I think we can take Arkansas."
    "We'll see, kid," retorted Auerbach.
    Bird scored 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against the Razorbacks, but it was his roommate, Heaton, who'd earned the moniker "Miracle Man" for his last-second heroics, who again launched the winning shot.
    With the score tied 71–71 in the final seconds of the game, Heaton looked to get Bird the ball, but Bird was double-teamed. Heaton drove the lane with his natural right hand, and as Arkansas forward Scott Hastings slid over to help, Heaton switched the ball into his left hand and rolled in a shot as the buzzer sounded. Indiana State was going to the Final Four, and Auerbach was going home without his prized draft pick.

    The Terre Haute campus was a cauldron of excitement, with Sycamore mania bubbling over to the classrooms, the restaurants, even the city library.
    The semifinal matchups in Salt Lake City, the site of the Final Four, pitted Michigan State against Penn, the plucky Ivy League team that had shocked North Carolina earlier in the tournament, and DePaul against Indiana State.
    Michigan State's surprise opponent was a heavy underdog against the Spartans, but Penn's brash star Tony Price declared beforehand, "I don't fear Michigan State. They're just a bunch of dudes who play ball."
    The "dudes" demolished the Quakers 101–67. It was 50–17 at halftime, and Johnson added yet another triple-double to his résumé: 29 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists.
    Midway through the second half, Michigan State couldn't help but break an old cardinal rule in sports: they started to look ahead.
    "Now stay focused, let's take care of this game first," Heathcote instructed his players.
    Magic looked directly at Heathcote.
    "C'mon, Coach, they're the Ivies! We're not going to lose to them!" he said.

    By the midway point of the second half, Heathcote admitted, all of the Spartans were thinking about one thing: "How are we going to stop Bird?"
    In the final moments of their thrashing of Penn, the Michigan State fans began chanting, "We want Bird! We want Bird!" The Sycamore fans responded in unison, "You'll get Bird! You'll get Bird!"
    Larry's Indiana State boys did not breeze into the championship like Magic's club. DePaul stars Mark Aguirre and Clyde Bradshaw made it clear they planned on playing a physical game and promised there would be no easy baskets for Bird.
    "They were talking all this trash about how they were going to manhandle us," Nicks said. "I think it really pissed Larry off. And that's never a good idea."
    Michigan State's players sat in the stands and watched in disbelief as DePaul came out and guarded Bird in single coverage. Magic turned to