Tennessee Basketball’s Zakai Zeigler And The Making Of A Point Guard

Many basketball purists say that great point guards are born not made. That elite point guards have an innate ability to see the entire court and how all 10 players move in unison to one another.

If there was ever evidence to the contrary it’s Tennessee junior Zakai Zeigler.

The 5-foot-9 guard arrived at Tennessee as a scorer in a point guard’s body before rounding out his game, earning First Team All-SEC honors and leading the conference in assists. Zeigler is well equipped to play for Rick Barnes in a program that prioritizes defense. He is a major piece to Tennessee’s improved offense.

“He makes the whole team run,” super senior shooting guard Santiago Vescovi said.

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Slowly Developing A Point Guard’s Mindset

The point guard position is servient and selfless in its purest nature. It’s about executing what a coach wants accomplished and when point guards are playing at their best they’re elevating their teammates more than themselves.

Those qualities weren’t celebrated in the parks of New York City where Zeigler learned to play basketball.

“Growing up in the parks it was always about guys that had handles and could score the basketball and I always prided myself on being one of the best guys,” Zeigler told RTI. “In all the park tournaments … the MVP was always the person with the most points. So that’s what I was always thinking. I got to have the most points so I can get MVP.”

When Zeigler arrived on Tennessee’s campus as a late addition to its 2021 recruiting class, that’s what he brought the Vols. He was a spark plug off the bench who could score in a flash with intensity and quickness that made him a pest on the defensive end of the court.

That’s all Tennessee needed him to be as a freshman. Rick Barnes and the Vols’ coaching staff originally planned on redshirting Zeigler with five-star point guard Kennedy Chandler in the fold. And while Zeigler’s mindset and ability quickly changed those plans, Chandler was still Tennessee’s point guard.

But when Chandler moved on to professional basketball after the 2021-22 season, Tennessee needed Zeigler to step up as the program’s next point guard. Not a ball handling shooting guard in a point guard’s body but a true point guard. The Vols’ coaching staff was clear about it from the start of the offseason but it didn’t fully resonate.

“I felt like I was understanding it but I probably wasn’t,” Zeigler said. “I thought I was but I wasn’t getting it.”

The Long Island native started understanding and grasping it over the course of the season. An early season loss against Colorado was a harsh lesson. Interactions with teammates Julian Phillips and Jahmai Mashack early in SEC play were rewarding lessons showing how fun elevating his teammates could be.

“One of the best compliments I’ve got from a teammate was from Julian— he said ‘you had 10 assists. I’m not used to point guards passing the ball like that. That was tough.’”

“Another game, I remember I had an open shot and I passed it to Shack and he took a dribble and shot it and it went in … and he said, ‘thanks for having confidence in me.’ Those two right there were two of the best compliments I’ve gotten as a point guard and me feeling like it’s really starting to click for me now,” Zeigler said.

Zeigler’s development had ebbs and flows during his sophomore season. That wasn’t surprising due to the intricacies of playing point guard and the newness of it all.

But by the time a torn ACL ended Zeigler’s sophomore season on the final day of February his mindset as a player had completely changed.

“I wouldn’t have necessarily called him a point guard when he first got here,” Tennessee associate head coach and former NC State point guard Justin Gainey told RTI. “I didn’t think he necessarily thought like a point guard all the time. That’s been a huge growth for him. I think he thinks point guard things, thinks point guard thoughts now.”

With a capable skill set and improved mindset, Zeigler next needed to grow in how he saw the entire game. The devastating knee injury aided him in that development.

How Watching From The Sidelines Helped Zeigler See The Entire Game

Zeigler didn’t miss a game in his junior season but he did miss almost the entirety of the offseason rehabbing his knee injury. But despite being unable to get up-and-down all offseason, Zeigler’s definitively improved this season.

He struggled early in the season while getting back into the flow of things but his stats still improved compared to his sophomore season. In SEC play, Zeigler averaged 10.2 points (35 FG%, 29 3PT%) and 6.5 assists as a sophomore. As a junior, Zeigler averaged 14.1 points (44 FG%, 37 3PT%) and seven assists in 18 SEC games.

How has Zeigler improved while limited in the offseason? He learned by watching the game from the sidelines.

“A lot of film and watching from the sideline helped me a lot more than I thought,” Zeigler said. “It was different really understanding the game. I always watched it but it made me really understand the game better. Just being on the sidelines and watching the guys and watching how people moved and seeing why coaches called certain plays at certain times.”

Zeigler stood by Tennessee coaches at practice watching things through their eyes and seeing why certain things do and don’t work.

He sat by Rick Barnes during the Vols’ exhibition game against Lenoir-Rhyne, talking through the game with his coach and better understanding the rhythm and logic of why Tennessee does certain things at certain times throughout the game.

“He was able to see things through Coach’s eyes and see what we were talking about with different areas to attack,” Gainey said.

“Reading defenses and kind of seeing things before Coach Barnes or one of the coaches says something to me,” Zeigler said of his offseason improvement. “I feel like that’s one part that people don’t really see but I honestly feel like I got a lot better in knowing that if teams are going to help side I can hit the opposite corner or if we run our transition and I just lay it out in front of guys they can get open layups. Simple things like that.”

There’s other reasons why Zeigler has improved this season. The Vols are playing much faster, a style that suits Zeigler’s game, thanks to a small ball lineup with Josiah-Jordan James at the four and Dalton Knecht’s elite transition scoring. The arrival of Knecht and emergence of Jonas Aidoo opens things up for Zeigler and takes a shot creation burden off his shoulder.

Zeigler digests film differently now, watching “everybody on the court” instead of just himself and the defender guarding him.

But watching the game from the sideline was undoubtedly a huge part of Zeigler’s development and a hidden benefit of the injury that ended his sophomore season.

“Being forced to be on the sideline for that long was pretty tough but it was a blessing in disguise because I was able to learn more things than I thought I would.”

A True Tennessee Point Guard

Each team and each program wants something slightly different from its point guard. A different tendency or strength can match up better with a program’s style and identity.

In that way, Zeigler fits Tennessee basketball like a glove.

The Vols’ program is built on defense and unrelenting competitiveness on the practice floor. Barnes says Zeigler changed Tennessee’s program with the way he competed in practice from the time he stepped on campus.

“The joker is a competitor, man,” Gainey said. “And you love it.”

There’s no better player to set the tone for one of the nation’s best defenses than Zeigler. At 5-foot-9, he gets under opposing guards and makes life extremely difficult for them. Frustrating an opponent and causing them to “shut down and start to argue” gives Zeigler more joy than anything else on the court outside of earning a win.

This season, Zeigler became just the second Vol in program history to win SEC Defensive Player of the Year.

“He’s the head of the snake,” Gainey said. “That’s the first person who engages the ball. It’s the first person who everyone sees setting the tone and setting the defensive mindset. Him being a defensive minded guy bodes well with our brand, who we are and what we do. That, as much as what he does on the offensive side, is really what being a Tennessee point guard is all about.”

Barnes is notoriously difficult on his point guards. You have to be mentally strong to play for the Vols’ veteran head coach, especially if you’re a point guard.

But Barnes’ hard coaching doesn’t faze Zeigler. He hears the meaning in the message and not the demanding tone. He shows it by his ability to respond from his worst performances.

Totaling two points, three assists and two turnovers in a loss against South Carolina, Barnes told him to be more vocal and stop deferring to Knecht so heavily. Zeigler responded with a 26-point, 13-assist performance in a win at Kentucky.

Playing out of himself in a sloppy win at Missouri, Barnes told him it was one of the worst games of his career. Zeigler responded by totaling nine points, 14 assists, nine rebounds and four steals in a win over Texas A&M.

“I don’t feel like he bashed me or anything but after those games he just tells me the truth and what I need to do better and what he felt like in those games,” Zeigler said. “Going to the next game I just pretty much make sure that I can’t let those things happen again.”

The measured responses to hard coaching and tenacious intensity makes him the perfect point guard to play for Rick Barnes. Combine it with his willingness to learn and adapt his game to what Tennessee needs and you get the making of an elite point guard.

“He is a guy that impacts the game,” Barnes said. “If he makes shots, that is one thing, but him getting into the lane really spraying it the way he did and collapsing the defense and then giving guys the chance to catch it on the run and do some things. He is just invaluable with what he does. … He is a special player.”