The NCAA Tournament inhabited a very different part of the 1978 sports world than it does today. The epic championship game between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson was still a year off. A 64-team field was still several years away. Teams weren’t formally seeded and the matchups you saw early in the tournament could reflect that.
Upsets happened, but they didn’t define the month of March the way they do today. And while any big sporting event will always attract gambling interest, there certainly wasn’t widespread office pools with everyone on earth filling out a bracket and taking an interest.
But there was one thing that 21st fans would certainly recognize and it’s Kentucky coming into an NCAA Tournament with a load of pressure on their shoulders as the team to beat. This free download takes you into the heart of the entire 1978 NCAA Tournament, with a complete narrative covering all 31 games.
1978 NCAA TOURNAMENT
The Game-By-Game Narrative
It’s all here. The great expectations heaped on Kentucky and how a historic night from Jack Givens helped complete what their head coach called a “joyless ride.”
There was rise of Duke, then an upstart program that everyone loved as a Cinderella story. Notre Dame was fresh off winning a football national championship and making the school’s one and only Final Four berth in a golden age of Midwest Catholic basketball. UCLA was only three years removed from the Wooden Dynasty and looking to re-establish their standing in college basketball. Arkansas was on the rise and so was a young freshman at Michigan State named Magic Johnson.
We’ll look back on the key players of all 32 teams in the field and how each team played its way into the NCAA Tournament. You’ll see where each program was at in their historical arc and how they were perceived at the time, as well as from the eyes of history. And we’ll uncover the decisive moments and telltale inflection points of all 31 games that comprised the 1978 NCAA Tournament.
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You’ll read about the following…
- The stiff challenges Kentucky got in four of their five games and how the greatness of Jack Givens eventually delivered the Wildcats a title.
- How Duke, then considered an upstart at the Final Four, had surprised the nation all season long and then validated that success with a big run in March.
- Notre Dame, fresh off winning a football national title in January, made a noble run at winning in basketball and got the program’s one and only berth in the Final Four.
- In a golden age for Catholic basketball in the Midwest, look at the performances of DePaul, along with defending NCAA champion Marquette.
- The rise of Arkansas as a legitimate college basketball power and their battle with UCLA, a program only three years removed from the end of the John Wooden Dynasty.
We’ll look back on the key players of all 32 teams in the field and how each team played its way into the NCAA Tournament. You’ll see where each program was at in their historical arc and how they were perceived at the time, as well as from the eyes of history. And we’ll uncover the decisive moments and telltale inflection points of all 31 games that comprised the 1978 NCAA Tournament.
Download the complete narrative of the 1978 NCAA Tournament today for free.