Zakai Zeigler eager to finish his March Madness tenure getting the Vols to their 1st Final Four

By Canadian Press on March 18, 2025.

Zakai Zeigler has one overriding goal for his final season with the Tennessee Volunteers, and that is making sure they accomplish something this program has never done.

Reach their first Final Four.

The Volunteers (27-7) have a lengthy NCAA Tournament history with this their 27th berth. They went five weeks during the regular season as the No. 1 team in the country and reached their fourth Southeastern Conference Tournament final in seven seasons. Now sights are set on finishing a very good season the best way possible.

“Winning. Winning,” Zeigler said. “We understand what is in front of us and what’s in line. My last year? I want to go out with a bang.”

Zeigler has been through so much on and off the court since arriving in Knoxville in August 2021. He is the SEC coaches’ two-time defensive player of the year and two-time all-SEC player who set the program record for assists in a single season during the SEC tourney. He now sits one from tying the school’s career mark at 715.

Yet, the 2022 SEC Tournament championship and 2024 SEC regular season title are the biggest trophies he has helped Tennessee win.

Tennessee was ousted in the second round of the 2022 tournament. Zeigler missed the run to the Sweet 16 in 2023 after tearing his left ACL late in the regular season, and the Vols fell as the No. 2 seed to Purdue in the Elite Eight last March.

Now a senior, he’s the point guard who runs the show for coach Rick Barnes. The coach with 833 career victories said he has the utmost respect for Zeigler. Barnes knows Zeigler’s body language so well and the point guard has his trust so much that the coach sometimes doesn’t have to say anything at all.

Barnes only wishes he could bottle how Zeigler approaches each day.

“I love going to practice, but I don’t think I have to raise my voice very much with him because he’s a guy self-motivated, has got a tremendous drive to get better,” Barnes said. “What he’s done in his career, I think he’ll leave here as one of the all-time great Tennessee Volunteers and really a guy that has impacted college basketball the past four years.”

The guard from New York, has stuck around Tennessee thanks to seeing just how fans support their Volunteers personally. During his freshman season, his mother Charmane lost everything when their apartment building in Queens burned Feb. 26, 2022. University officials helped arrange a GoFundMe with fans blowing past the $50,000 goal and raising $363,027 in less than a day before being closed.

His mother, who also takes care of a special needs nephew, moved to Knoxville that summer. Zeigler said then that they were “absolutely blown away” by the outpouring of support.

Zeigler kept working. At 5-foot-9, he is the shortest Volunteer on scholarship since 5-7 Ralph Parton in 1979-80. Zeigler’s defensive skills and ability to find teammates is helped by his long armspan. He added 24 pounds and now has a standing vertical jump that has improved 4.23 inches since getting to Knoxville.

“I know he’s been an inspiration for a lot of small guards,” Barnes said. “I mean there’s lot of guards out there, small guys, that contact us because they see what he’s done and know we believe in guys like that.”

Opposing coaches know these Vols go as Zeigler goes. Alabama failed to take advantage of Zeigler being on the bench with two fouls for 10 minutes of the first half of a buzzer-beating loss March 1. Alabama coach Nate Oats said of Zeigler: “He’s the only guy that really creates a lot of offense for them.”

Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington saw Zeigler score 22 points rallying Tennessee to a win Feb. 15. Nothing his Commodores could do stopped Zeigler from controlling both the game and the pace of play.

“He’s great in space,” Byington said. “He’s great in decision-making, and we tried multiple things to be able stop him. And we couldn’t come up with it.”

Zeigler also need only glance at his mother in the stands to see how he’s doing in games. She’s always encouraged him to play mad, especially when her son isn’t playing his best. Zeigler knows that means to step up his emotions, play more aggressively and cover his approach with a smile.

Now the No. 2 seeded Vols start their final NCAA Tournament run with Zeigler on Thursday night against 15th-seeded Wofford in Lexington, Kentucky, in the Midwest Region.

“We know what’s at stake,” Zeigler said.

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Teresa M. Walker, The Associated Press