– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — Soon after his layup toward the end of Tuesday night’s win, Tennessee Volunteers point guard and Long Island native Zakai Zeigler blew a kiss to the crowd behind the basket, a gathering that included a number of orange-clad supporters and many members of his family and close friends that made the short trip to Manhattan to see him play the game like they had countless times before while growing up in the shadows of the Big Apple.
The only thing that might be stronger than the strong bonds that Zeigler’s family has for him is the bond that forged between him and Volunteer Nation, which continues to be reinforced with his decision to stay in Knoxville when so many factors during his time could have led him elsewhere.
The 37 minutes that Zeigler was on the floor allowed him to show off why he’s the most important player on the team currently ranked No. 1 in the country, as his 13 points, nine assists and five rebounds propelled the Volunteers to a 75-62 victory over Miami in the first game of the Jimmy V Classic inside Madison Square Garden. The countless amount of hours before Tuesday night hardened Zeigler, a product of Our Savior Lutheran School in Long Island, and allowed him to see all of work of coming back from physical and personal setbacks pay off.
The last time Zeigler was inside the World’s Most Famous Arena, his Volunteers were in the Sweet 16 … but he didn’t play in it, that after he had suffered a torn ACL in Tennessee’s home finale in February 2023 and sitting out the rest of the season while recovering from surgery.
“Being able to come back here and finally get a win, because my freshman year we didn’t get a win and my sophomore year we didn’t get a win here, so being able to come back in get a win here in front of a lot of hometown friends, family — my grandmother’s here, some people that haven’t got seen me know, my teammates play since since high school — it was it was really, really meaningful to me,” Zeigler said.
Zeigler and his family members know how meaningful his adopted home of Knoxville has been to them, especially in the most trying of circumstances. Almost one year prior to his ACL injury, on February 26, 2022, Zeigler’s childhood home in Queens was destroyed by a fire. Charmane Zeigler, Zakai’s mother, and Zakai’s four-year-old nephew, Nori, were displaced after the catastrophe in which all of the family’s belongings burned down. On March 2 of that year, and soon after Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes announced the news regarding Zeigler and his family’s situation, Tennessee Basketball released a Fire Relief and Recovery fundraiser to provide support to the Zeigler family. Roughly 30 minutes after its release, the goal of $50,000 was met. Twenty hours later, that number was sevenfold.
It’s no wonder that Zeigler has stayed loyal to the program, despite the ever-changing business landscape of college basketball that has allowed more player movement than ever. It’s no wonder that Zeigler strongly uttered the word “loyalty” as Barnes was talking about Zeigler when the former was asked about Zeigler having an old-school mentality of sticking it out with the school that he agreed to play college basketball for.
I don’t know if there’s a more beloved Volunteer than him,” Barnes said in the postgame press conference after the win against the Hurricanes. “A couple of years ago and his family lost everything they owned up here in the fire, and within a matter of 30-some hours, Volunteer nation raised $350,000, and could have done more but the NCAA shut it down. He’s never forgotten that, and he’s beloved. Everybody knows what time he goes to Chick-fil-A every night. He deals with all that. But his career and what he’s done for this program is really second to none.”
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