Kentucky had just won the national title, and Joe B. Hall was leading Team USA in the 1978 World Invitational. Larry Bird was a bench player and it seems like he took that personally.
Larry Bird cuts down the net after Indiana State University won the championship game in the Missouri Valley tournament on March 3, 1979. Bird suffered a triple hairline fracture of his left thumb in the game. That year ISU faced Michigan State in the NCAA finals but lost to the Spartans (and Magic Johnson) on March 26,1979,in Salt Lake City.
