The Athletic has live coverage of the Men’s Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament games
“Culture” is the most uttered word in sports. Microbiology may be the only field with more use for it.
Coaches and players typically use it as a catch-all for people getting along and succeeding as a result. Winning is tied to “culture.” Being more talented and winning as a result is an amazing boost to a culture. Still, the intangibles obviously matter. To outsiders, “culture” often refers to style. So the sportswriting analysis of Tennessee men’s basketball under Rick Barnes would be a culture of toughness … defense … hard work.
That’s all fine, but there’s more to it. Follow senior point guard Zakai Zeigler around the Tennessee locker room for an NCAA Tournament weekend and you see the foundation.
Zeigler to a teammate: “You gonna show up for this game?”
Zeigler to an approaching beat writer: “Yo yo, back up off me, man. Your breath stinks.”
Zeigler, asked if he thinks Barnes might consider retiring after this season at age 70 because Zeigler is graduating and Zeigler may well be Barnes’ favorite all-time player in his 37 seasons as a head coach: “Nah, I don’t think so. He loves the game way too much. What would he do? He’s in the gym some days when we’re not even in there. What he’s doing, I have no clue. But he can sit in there all day.”
Tennessee is Barnes. Tennessee is Zeigler. Tennessee is a culture of needling. Needling each other because these are real relationships — with plenty of brutally frank talk as well — but also because this is supposed to be fun. Needling the opponent until the opponent wants to quit.
“Zakai is just a pest, you know? Best defender in the country,” Tennessee senior guard Jordan Gainey said.
“The ultimate competitor,” sophomore forward Cade Phillips said.
“A hall-of-fame instigator,” sophomore forward J.P. Estrella said.
The Midwest No. 2 seed Vols may lose a third game in three tries to No. 3 seed Kentucky in Friday’s Midwest Regional semifinals in Indianapolis, which would mean abject disappointment in arguably the biggest game in program history. They may go on to the first Final Four in that program’s history and take the whole thing in San Antonio. The margins are tight at this point in the tournament and always are for a program with an elite defense (No. 3 in KenPom’s efficiency ratings) and a reliance on outside shooting that can come and go.
But no one is touching these guys when it comes to having fun at the expense of each other. This is Barnes all the way. He’s intense (if profanity-free) on the sidelines during games, and that’s mostly what the public sees. But he’s got a wry comment for just about anyone who crosses his path when it’s not time to practice or compete. He finds joy in the repartee.
The (officially listed at) 5-foot-9 Zeigler is a mini-Barnes in this way. In so many ways. Replace the North Carolina twang with a deep New York accent. Subtract 48 years of time on Earth. Swap a basketball in for a whistle. They care about two things in this sport: Making the most out of their time with the fellas, and winning. Zeigler, at least, is just about out of time with the fellas.
“What he does out there, I’m telling you, he does it every day,” Barnes said. “That’s why he is what he is.”
Which is, said associate head coach Justin Gainey, “the fabric of what Tennessee basketball is.”
Zeigler has the production to back that up, standing as Tennessee’s all-time leader in assists (732, third in SEC history) and steals (250, 10th). He has scored more than 1,500 points and was named SEC Defensive Player of the Year the past two seasons — making him the third multiple-time winner of that award, to go with being the first player to make the All-SEC Defensive Team four times.
If defense were valued appropriately by voters, in particular the way Zeigler plays it and how difficult it must make it to do everything else he does for the Vols, he’d be more than a third-teamer on several All-America teams.
But there’s a lot more to the “fabric” and to why the Vols also may be unmatched in their desire to make this run for another person. All of Barnes’ teams want to do it for him — give him a second Final Four, give him a first national title, shut up outsiders who don’t understand why he’s special. Just as much, this team wants to do it for Zeigler.
“People might see that competitive fire he has and mistake that for someone who is hard to get along with,” Phillips said. “It’s the opposite. When Zakai has your back, there is nothing in the world that will ever change that.”
The origin story is well-worn at this point. Zeigler was an undersized, under-recruited guard who had to hop trains to try to better himself as a kid, whose best offer was from Saint Peter’s before Tennessee came in late in the summer of 2021. Barnes figured he would redshirt as a freshman and serve as a quality practice combatant that season for one-and-done freshman Kennedy Chandler.
That’s what they told Zeigler, anyway. After a few days of preseason practice, there was no way that was happening.
“He never said anything,” Justin Gainey said. “Never complained. Never hung his head. Didn’t even say, ‘I’ll show you.’ He just went out and did it. That toughness, man.”
That freshman season, Zeigler’s family home in Long Island was destroyed in a fire. Vols fans raised more than $363,000 in support, allowing his family to relocate to Knoxville.
“When it comes down to it, I’m really blessed that (Barnes) took a chance on me,” Zeigler said. “It changed my life. It changed my family’s life.”
The 2022-23 Vols were essentially Zeigler’s team, but he tore the ACL in his left knee late in the season and could only offer words of inspiration through a Sweet 16 run. He led the Vols to the second Elite Eight in program history last season, aided by transfer star Dalton Knecht, but Zeigler’s legs were heavy by the end of it and his shots weren’t falling.
Implored by Barnes and strength coach Garrett Medenwald to take recovery more seriously, Zeigler has gone from being able to tolerate just a few seconds in the cold tub a year ago to a 10-minute plunge last weekend in Lexington, Ky. And the shots are falling.
Along the way, Zeigler has gotten to the point of correcting Barnes at practice if he draws up a play wrong or forgets what it’s called. He has led the Vols from the start, but this is the first season with Zeigler and fellow senior Jahmai Mashack as official voices of the team, after the departures of Josiah James and Santiago Vescovi.
That’s Zeigler and Mashack, the most imposing defensive duo in men’s college basketball, the guys who almost came to blows as freshmen on the scout team because they were losing to the starters.
“It’s not always pretty, not always sunshine and rainbows, but those are the bonds that are the strongest,” said Mashack, who added that the scout team actually came back to win after their near fight (also, Zeigler and Mashack both claimed they would have won the fight).
Zeigler is hell on opponents. He has them scouted, he knows their moves and he’s quick enough to beat them to spots even if they surprise him. He glares, he slaps at the ball, he smiles. He talks. And when he knows he has someone flustered and off his game, he shakes his hands to the side as if giving an emphatic “so-so” signal.
“That’s him telling us the guy is getting shaken and scared,” Jordan Gainey said, and when all that pestering leads to a run to flip a game, as it did late in the first half of Saturday’s win over UCLA, Zeigler makes sure his teammates and the fans are appropriately fired up about it.
“That’s Z,” Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark said. “He wants to win every single possession. He wants to dominate everyone he’s guarding. It spreads to the rest of the team.”
If his teammates mess up, he gets after them. Just as Barnes does. Just as Barnes gets after him when he tries something too risky on offense or keeps trying to bury an opponent when running clock would be wiser. They teamed up during the SEC Tournament with loud admonishments for senior forward Igor Milicic after consecutive critical mistakes — a dropped Zeigler pass and a play run incorrectly — late in a win over Auburn.
In the locker room after that game, Zeigler was back to needling, questioning Milicic’s hands in front of teammates and assembled media. He stayed on the slumping Milicic in Lexington. But before the UCLA game, Zeigler called Milicic to his room.
“Yo, like, remember why you came here?” Zeigler said of his message, reminding Milicic of all he has done this season to prove he belongs in the SEC.
“He told me I’m a dog, I’m a great basketball player and just to play free,” Milicic said after stepping up with seven rebounds in a matchup that most required him to elevate his work on the boards. “That’s a great leader. I’m grateful for him.”
That’s where these conversations tend to go. That’s where it went with Barnes, long after the UCLA game, in the hallway outside the Tennessee locker room, after having some fun at the expense of media members and Tennessee staffers. He was asked to tell his best Zeigler story. He told a few.
Then the smile faded and he got serious for a minute.
“One of the great stories ever,” Barnes said. “He’ll leave as one of the greatest Tennessee Volunteers ever. He’s like, my comfort. I love him. I love him to death.”
(Top photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
