Indiana State Sycamores

Okay.

It is about the, uh, 1970 whatever, the Indiana State Sycamores with Larry Bird, and the entire trajectory of that team both before and after.

Uh, it's just a fascinating look into an era in which college basketball was bigger than the NBA.

Like the NBA finals were on tape delay in that era, and Bird and Magic Johnson set obviously, I think they still set some kind of television record for, uh, that NCAA fi- NCAA tournament final in Salt Lake City.

Well, then-

He was playing for the Indiana State Sycamores, and he hit...

That's-

Wow

So it's a bit of a disingenuous narrative that we built, and we built it because they play that one game in March 1979.

And the reality is, in March 1979, Larry Bird and the upstart shock-the-world Indiana State Sycamores play a lot of future NBA stars, uh, Mark Aguirre, Sidney Moncrief, et cetera.

You know, Magic's just another one, really.

Uh, and so what I wanted to do with this book was tilt the camera in a slightly different way, you know, zoom in from a different direction.

You can watch the game if you can't make it on ESPN+.

USD playing host to the Indiana State Sycamores.

Here's Coach Vittstram on the match-up.

A lot of fight, a lot of scratch, a lot of pride in that program.

Or the Minnesota Vikings, Las Vegas Raiders, Buffalo Bills among the undefeated teams so far this season.

And before we're done, after dings and dents, we'll dive into some USD Coyote football talk ahead of Dakota Days hosting Indiana State Sycamore football.

Head coach Matt Vitsem joins us around twelve forty this afternoon.

Time now to take a look at your scorecard.

And certainly a big part of that defense for the Yotes.

USD three and two, O and one in MVFC play.

They'll get an opportunity to equalize that record, one and one with a win against the Indiana State Sycamores, who come in on Saturday for Dakota Days at two o'clock.

Before we preview the team you'll face, Coach, just talk about the day a bit, Dakota Days, the atmosphere, the meaning, and how great it is to see this community come together for a big game and big weekend down there in Vermillion.

And then Keith O'Brien is here.

He's the author of a book called Heartland about Larry Bird and the Indiana State Sycamores.

It's awesome.

I loved it.

I think most of them would say, "Wait, wasn't there the weird thing where the Celtics drafted him a year early when he was still in school and had to wait for him? Like, how did that work?" I think some percentile of them would be like, "Wait, didn't he go to Indiana for a hot second and hate it, and, and leave, and I'm not really sure what happened there," and then there's a vague, like, maybe he was a garbage man a- at some point.

But I think fleshing out all of the, like, you have a lot in there about his time, his, his recruitment, uh, which is fascinating, uh, his decision to go to Indiana under Bob Knight and why that didn't work.

And I think fleshing out all of those things leading up to the Indiana State Sycamores team was super interesting, and I definitely learned stuff that I didn't know about his recruitment and his time at Indiana.

But my favorite thing about this book was that it feels extremely lived in.