Larry Bird at Kentucky?!?!

If he had his way back in the 1970s, he would have gone to Lexington.

In a conversation with a couple of other Indiana basketball legends ― Reggie Miller and Isiah Thomas ― Bird casually mentions his top target in the high school recruiting process.

"I wanted to go to Kentucky, but Kentucky quit recruiting me, so it was down to Indiana State and IU," Bird said.

Bird, a 1974 Indiana All-Star from Springs Valley, committed to Indiana, but left early in his freshman year. The common story is that Bird was homesick for French Lick, but he said it was because he couldn't afford life in Bloomington.

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Bird ended up at Indiana State for three years, leading the Sycamores to the 1979 national championship game, where they lost to Magic Johnson-led Michigan State. The game is considered a landmark in popularizing college basketball.

Here's the clip of Bird tossing out that jarring piece of information.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Larry Bird says his first college basketball choice was Kentucky