Former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins, who took over the Yellow Jackets’ basketball program in the early 1980s, fielded one of Tech’s best teams in 1990, which featured Brian Oliver, Kenny Anderson and Dennis Scott. Cremins recalls his team’s run through the tournament and what it meant to make it to the Final Four.
It was a big hurdle. We were fortunate. You have to have luck.
We had a very good team, but we had a bit of a rough draw. When I saw the bracket, I noticed that we had to go to Knoxville for the first game, and I had to coach against one of my best friends, Les Robinson at East Tennessee State.
I felt we had enough power to get by them. But then Shaquille O’Neal and LSU were waiting. That looked pretty tough. I was right for about 35 minutes.
We beat East Tennessee State, and we were getting beat up by LSU. They were intimidating us. They had Stanley Roberts, Chris Jackson and Shaquille. We made a sub. We couldn’t stop Chris Jackson, and Karl Brown saved the day. I went to a small lineup. I put Dennis Scott at the 4. We had to go small because Brown was doing such a fantastic job guarding Chris Jackson.
Brown got us going. Dennis Scott made the big shot, and once we got the lead, we went on for the victory. It was a great game.
Then we went to New Orleans. The Michigan State game was a tough game. There was the controversy with Kenny Anderson’s shot at the end of the game. I’ll always remember Kenny dribbling and me saying, “Shoot the thing.” He finally let it go and everyone went nuts. I was watching the officials, and I knew something was wrong.
They came over and said, “Bobby, we have a problem. We think Kenny’s foot was on the line.” I didn’t hesitate. I said, “Fine, let’s go to overtime.”
The fact we got the game to overtime was amazing. Then we beat them in overtime. (Former Michigan State coach) Jud Heathcote, to this day, gives me a hard time about that game.
After we won that dramatic game, we thought we could beat Minnesota, but that turned out to be a rough game. Johnny McNeil saved the game. They had a good look at a 3-pointer, and McNeil went flying after him and did a great job changing his shot.
Reaching the Final Four was a huge hurdle to get over. The Tech people went nuts. Everybody was so excited. My father had passed away that Christmas, so I was disappointed I couldn’t bring my dad to the Final Four. He would have loved that.
Against UNLV we were up seven by halftime. We had them right where we wanted them. Kenny picked up his fourth foul, and they beat us. We had a chance to win it all that year. It was a really good shot at winning it all.
When you go to a Final Four it takes you to another level. We got tremendous recognition. It wasn’t as big back then as it is now. But it meant so much to the program to be ACC champions and make the Final Four.
We were new to it all. It was just a really, really exciting time.
We had tremendous chemistry. Kenny was sensational as a freshman. Brian Oliver was the heart of the team. The leader was Dennis Scott. He was so talented.
My life changed a little bit. A lot of things changed. I was hoping we’d go right back the following year. Once Dennis left, we were losing a great player. The city of Atlanta, everybody just rallied around us. It just all came together.
It was a magnificent time.
