Chris Lofton has been named the new Head Coach at Tennessee, sparking celebrations and widespread excitement over the uplifting news.
Tennessee Makes Historic Zakai Zeigler Announcement After NCAA Tournament
Zakai Zeigler was one of the best college basketball players during the 2024-25 season. The 22-year-old from Long Island, New York, has been with Rick Barnes and the Volunteers for three seasons now and played 101 games.
This season, the 5-foot-9 point guard scored 11.8 points per game and dished out 6.1 assists. Zeigler led his Volunteers to the Elite Eight for the second straight season.
Unfortunately, Tennessee fell to the Houston Cougars in Indianapolis, one game shy of the Final Four.
After the NCAA Tournament finished on Monday, most of the talk was about college basketball’s transfer portal. But fans are also starting to see accomplishments roll in, and on Friday, the University of Tennessee men’s basketball social media account made a historic announcement involving their star point guard.
“Once again, ZZ leads the SEC,” posted Tennessee. “For the third straight season, Zakai Zeigler is your SEC assists leader. He’s the fourth player in SEC history to lead the league in assists for three consecutive years.”
The point guard talked to KnoxNews just before the start of the NCAA Tournament and discussed being a little overlooked before his time at Tennessee.
“Me coming in as somebody that was overlooked, under recruited to now being able to talk about (the possibility of) going to the Final Four, it is a really good feeling, I still feel like I have to think like that under recruited kid that a lot of people didn’t believe in. I have to keep it going,” Zeigler said.
Zeigler was also a finalist for the Naismith Men’s College Defensive Player of the Year. He did not win the award, as Ryan Kalkbrenner of Creighton did.
Barnes has been in Knoxville since 2015-16. He has compiled a 232-107 record with the Volunteers. In SEC play, the Volunteers have gone 111-66 under Barnes.
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