A new name to know.
A new target has quickly emerged for Tennessee on the basketball side. Zakai Zeigler, a 2022 point guard prospect, picked up an offer from the Volunteers earlier this month after a strong showing at Peach Jam. Before that, he held just one offer from Saint Peters.
Zeigler now has offers from Boston College, Minnesota, Wichita State and Tennessee.
The 5-10 point guard out of New York quickly set up visits, which included one to Knoxville on Monday. Now he’s set a decision date — Friday at 4 p.m. ET. But that’s not all. He could potentially reclassify to the 2021 class and join Tennessee this year, should he commit to the Volunteers.
Three members of Tennessee’s staff were in attendance for Zeigler’s breakout showing, which spurred the offer. Zeigler is currently unranked by 247Sports, but expect that to change soon.
Nick Carner, our resident basketball guru, dug up some stats from his breakout moment at Peach Jam.
“The young guard from New York was reportedly shooting out of his mind, going a staggering 7-8 from behind the 3-point line. He dropped 23 total points, added 10 assists, three steals, three rebounds and didn’t turn the ball over once.”
You can see why he found himself with some new offers after the event.
The Vols still have an available scholarship available for this year, and could add Zeigler to start developing right away. Tennessee will have five-star point guard Kennedy Chandler running the show this year, but quite honestly don’t have a great solution for minutes behind him. Santiago Vescovi is the obvious answer, but his role seemed to shift to more of a pure shooter late in the year.
It’s unclear how big of a role Zeigler could carve out as a freshman — and he very well could end up getting a redshirt season — but Tennessee does have a need for someone like him. It would be interesting to see how quickly he could come along.
Be on the lookout on Friday.
Leave a Reply