I'm Not Ready to Say Goodbye to Zakai Zeigler
But if he has to go, I want him to end his Tennessee career on a historic note.
Welcome to Not So Serious Sports, a weekly blog/newsletter about college sports, unless it’s not! Subscribe for a new post each week that will usually be about Vols or Lady Vols athletics, unless it’s about college sports at large or things not related to sports at all, like politics, mental health, or nerdy things. All content is available for free, but if you feel generous and want to donate with a paid subscription, that is greatly appreciated!
I know the name of this blog is “Not So Serious Sports,” but you’ll excuse me if this post is a little more serious than previous entries. It’s not every day one of your all-time favorite players is close to playing their last game with one of your favorite teams.
I’m not ready to say goodbye. Thankfully, I don’t have to for a few more weeks still, but I know the time is almost here.
For about 1,300 days now, Zakai Zeigler has been a Tennessee Volunteer. Even if the Vols go on a championship run in the NCAA Tournament, there are less than 30 days remaining in Zakai’s playing career with Tennessee (barring an improbable decision to allow him and other players a fifth year of eligibility).
I, like thousands of other Vol fans, have savored every moment of Zakai’s time at Tennessee. And it feels surreal to know it’s about to come to an end.
It’s been an absolute joy watching Zeigler play basketball for the last four seasons, and I’m so glad we get to watch him play a few more games this season. The last four years have brought me to a conclusion, one I thought might happen even within the first few months of watching him play: Zakai Zeigler is one of my all-time favorite Vols. Not just in basketball, but out of every sport I’ve ever watched the University of Tennessee compete in.
I know I’m not alone in this. Zeigler has endeared himself to every Vol fan, even those who don't consider themselves basketball zealots like myself. Zeigler’s persistence, drive, attitude, and heart have made him stand out in ways that go beyond description.
His play on the court also surpasses description; Zakai has to be one of the most annoying and frustrating players to be guarded by, and I imagine he’s almost equally as frustrating to try and guard on the other end. Zeigler is “determination” personified, and that’s true both on and off the basketball court. I’ll get to some of the off-court examples in a moment, but let’s focus on his on-court success first.
Zakai will end his Tennessee career scattered across the school's record books. At the time of writing this, he only needs 4 more assists to break the single-season assist record of 227, a record that's stood for 50 years since Rodney Woods amassed that total in the 1974-75 season. He needs just 20 more assists to break the program record for most career assists (715), a record held by Johnny Darden for just over 45 years. He already owns the career steals record and might end up making that untouchable by the time he's finished this season. He’s also more than doubled the previous school record for most career points/assists double-doubles with 11 as a Vol. The old record was 5, also held by Rodney Woods.
Zeigler is one of only three Vols ever to total at least 1,000 points and 500 assists in a career. Only CJ Watson and Tony Harris can boast the same. Zakai is also one of only two Vols ever who have totaled 1,000 points, 400 assists, and 200 steals, with former teammate Santiago Vescovi being the only other (CJ Watson finished his career with 198 steals, otherwise he would also qualify). He’s the ONLY Tennessee player to amass 1,400 points, 600 assists, and 200 steals in a career.
And as of March 10, 2025, he’s now the first Vol ever to win the SEC Defensive Player of the Year award twice, earning that distinction in consecutive seasons. He also became the first player in SEC history to be named to the SEC All-Defensive Team four times in a career when he earned that honor once again this season.
I think it’s safe to say that yet another thought I had during Zeigler’s freshman year has come true:
And he’s done all this not as a highly-touted five-star prospect or some athletic freak of nature; he did it as a 5-foot-8 point guard from New York who was hardly recruited in high school and grabbed very late attention with a breakout performance in the 2021 Peach Jam, a premier AAU event in North August, SC.
Zeigler is gifted athletically, for sure. He has a good burst of speed, has exceptionally good instincts, and possesses very quick hands. But his most notable traits are his grit and persistence, and those have served him well off the court, too.
During his freshman season at UT, Zeigler and his family suffered a tragedy. On February 26, 2022, the apartment complex in Queens where Zakai’s mother, Charmane, lived was destroyed by a fire. Charmane and Zakai’s special needs nephew, Nori, lost everything.
A few days later, Zeigler and UT launched a GoFundMe to help with the damages and try to ease the financial burden on his family. The initial goal for the fundraiser was $50,000.
Tennessee fans (and other kind-hearted donors) surpassed that goal in less than an hour and ultimately raised over $363,000 in the span of 24 hours. Because of that generous outpouring, Charmane and Nori permanently relocated to Knoxville, and she was able to purchase a home.
That was just the first of two defining moments of Zakai’s Tennessee career, though.
At the end of February 2023, Zeigler suffered a season-ending ACL tear. It was safe to assume at the time that his Tennessee career would be deeply affected, and that he might miss the start of the following season and probably wouldn’t be the same once he returned.
But just like with everything else, Zakai attacked his rehab with an almost inhuman tenacity.
Zakai had surgery to repair his torn ACL on March 13, 2023. Not even seven months later on November 6, he was on the court for 12 minutes in Tennessee’s 2023-24 season opener. Three weeks after that on November 29, he returned to the Vols’ starting lineup against North Carolina. He started every game after that and averaged nearly 34 minutes per game the rest of the season, including playing the full 40 minutes three times and playing at least 38 minutes six other times.
That season was the year Zeigler won his first SEC Defensive Player of the Year. It was the year where he asserted himself as one of the greatest point guards to play for Tennessee’s men’s basketball team.
This season, he’s solidified himself not only as arguably the best point guard in Tennessee history, but one of the best players ever regardless of position.
The mark of an elite point guard isn't just their own stats and accolades, but the success of their teammates and the overall team. Zakai has certainly been elite there, too.
In games Zeigler has played in, the Vols have gone 100-31. He's missed a total of just seven games in his UT career, and the Vols are 4-3 without him.
Zeigler helped the Vols win their 1st SEC Tournament title in over 40 years in 2022, and he was the driving force behind Tennessee's outright regular season SEC title and the program’s second-ever Elite Eight appearance in 2024.
At the time of me writing this post, Zakai Zeigler has made 451 field goals and 324 free throws, and he's assisted on 696 made baskets by teammates. That's nearly 1,500 scores that Zakai has been a contributor for in his Tennessee career. He's totaled over 1,400 points himself in his career, and it's safe to assume he's helped his teammates score over 1,600 points (conservatively) in that same time frame.
I could go on and on and on about Zakai Zeigler. The things I’ve written here truly only scratch the surface on how incredible this young man is. If you Google his name or his mother’s name, you’ll be greeted with articles like this one, or this one, or even this one, just to share a few.
It’s crazy to me that all the signs were there early in Zeigler’s career, too. I’m going to do a shameless plug here, but one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done in my life came after I had given up sports media as my full-time career. I was doing my own podcast (which I really, really miss doing) called Vol Basketball Fever, and I made it a point to interview the high school or travel ball coaches of recruits Tennessee would land to try and get a sense of what Vol fans should expect. When I spoke to Peter Wehye and Malcolm Pope of Our Saviour Lutheran School, where Zeigler played high school ball, they both spoke exceptionally highly of Zakai and provided one of my favorite quotes about him still to this day:
“Zakai is the guy that’s gonna run into the fire as opposed to running away from the fire. He’s actually got to see if the fire is actually hot.”
If you want to go back and listen to an almost four-year-old podcast episode, you can find the full interview here on Apple Podcasts and here on Spotify. I personally think it’s worth a listen, but I’m obviously biased.
Zeigler is stellar on the court as well as off it. His collegiate career deserves an illustrious ending, and it’s why I’m more desperate this year for Tennessee to get to the program’s first Final Four than I ever have been.
Few players, if any, in Tennessee’s men’s basketball history have deserved to end their career with a historic finish as much as Zakai. He’s already been a part of several notable moments for the Vols, such as their first SEC Tournament title since 1979, their second-ever Elite Eight appearance, their first outright SEC regular season title since 2008, and helping the Vols win 25 or more games in four-straight seasons for the first time in program history.
But that Final Four berth has continued to elude Tennessee, and thus has also eluded one of their greatest all-time players in the process.
I can think of no better way for Zeigler’s Tennessee playing career to end than by playing in the program’s first-ever Final Four. My hopes of that happening aren’t very high, unfortunately, but Zeigler has made it a habit of defying the odds his whole life. Maybe he can do it one more time as a Vol.
I’ll never be ready to say goodbye to Zakai Zeigler. But if he has to go, I want the farewell to come atop a mountain that Tennessee’s men’s basketball program has never climbed before. I want him to make it to the Final Four.
Every program and fanbase would be lucky to have a Zakai Ziegler come through. As a Kentucky fan, I’m fine with him moving on, but he is very easy to root for.