There never has been a recruiting duel to match it. Not in Michigan.
Earvin Johnson, Jr., was the prize in April of 1977. He had been seen for years as a teenage basketball whiz so talented as to be celestial. He had moved into Michigan and Michigan State’s consciousness as a 12-year-old at Dwight Rich Junior High in Lansing, and then at Lansing Everett, where by 1975 he was anointed, in any consensus of college coaches, the best prep basketball player in the land.