GT Basketball to Honor 1990 Final Four Team Against UVA

"Lethal Weapon 3" helped lead Tech to their 1st Final Four.

Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

THE FLATS – Georgia Tech basketball will celebrate the 30 anniversary of its 1990 NCAA Final Four and Atlantic Coast Conference championship team Saturday night when the Yellow Jackets take on the defending NCAA champion Virginia Cavaliers at McCamish Pavilion.

The game will tip off at 8 p.m.

The entire 1989-90 team is expected to attend, with the exception of junior forward Dennis Scott, whose duties announcing NBA games for NBA TV will keep him out of town. The members of the team will sign autographs before the game and be introduced on the court at halftime. Replica team posters for the 1990 team will be given away to fans attending the game while supplies last.

Led by the legendary “Lethal Weapon 3” group of Scott, Kenny Anderson and Brian Oliver, the 1990 Yellow Jackets won 28 games and were one of the nation’s highest scoring teams, setting Tech records for most points (3.096) and highest scoring average (88.5 points per game) in a season. Scott, a 6-8 junior forward, Oliver, a 6-4 senior guard, and Anderson, a 6-foot freshman point guard, each averaged more than 20 points per game.

Tech plowed through the ACC Tournament in Charlotte, N.C., beating NC State, Duke and Virginia to earn its second crown in six years.

In the NCAA Tournament, the Jackets downed East Tennessee State in the opening round before encountering an LSU team that featured Shaquille O’Neal. Tech got by the Tigers, 94-91, earning a spot in the Sweet 16 in New Orleans, La., where the Jackets outlasted Michigan State in overtime, 81-80, and Minnesota, 93-91, to reach the Final Four, where they fell to eventual champion UNLV, 90-81.

Bobby Cremins, the head coach of that team, won the Naismith Coach of the Year Award in 1990, and the Naismith coach of the Year trophy will be displayed on the concourse during the game as well.

Scott was named the Naismith National Player of the Year and a consensus first-team All-American. Anderson was a second-team All-American in 1990, but would become a first-team member the next season.

Oliver, Scott and Anderson all made the All-ACC team that season, while Anderson and Scott made the All-Southeast Regional team in New Orleans, and Scott made the All-Final Four team.

The rest of the starting lineup included 6-10 freshman forward Malcolm Mackey, who would go on to become the Yellow Jackets’ all-time leading rebounder and win another ACC title with the Jackets in 1993, and 6-9 center Johnny McNeil. Senior point guard Karl Brown from Leicester, England, 6-9 freshman forward Darryl Barnes and 6-11 senior center James Munlyn were all key contributors off the bench.