2023-24 Tennessee basketball preview: backcourt

some short guys and some not-so-short guys but mostly a lot of very likable guys that you'll remember when you Remember Some Guys

Hi! Everything here was written BEFORE yesterday’s exhibition game against Michigan State. Keep that in mind as you read on. Thanks. - W

Well, we’re back. And I’m determined to not make the exact same mistakes as last year! I will not look at a great exhibition game win over a top-5 opponent in late October…I will not let a result that literally does not count alter my expectations…I will NOT engage with the haters and losers. I can’t do it! Been there too many times.

The good news is that I did not need said exhibition win over a top-5 opponent on the road to really sway me in either direction here. Throw a stone around and you’ll find someone who holds Tennessee’s backcourt in very high regard. The Almanac ranked it 10th-best in the nation. Squeeze Evan Miyakawa’s ratings around and he seems to feel they’re a top-5 grouping. Hoop-Explorer has it fourth-best behind Purdue (???), Creighton, and Houston. Overall wonderful human Tristan Freeman, who watches more basketball than nearly anyone I have ever met online, has Tennessee’s backcourt #6 in America.

I could go on but you get the point: it’s not just me and it’s not just you who thinks this backcourt is pretty good. Everyone who’s tuned in seems to be on the same page here. For the second time in the entire Barnes era with 2021-22 being the other, Tennessee’s backcourt is the team strength on both ends of the floor. The members of this backcourt collectively made 291 threes last season, and that doesn’t include guys like Freddie Dilione (true freshman) or Josiah-Jordan James (who we’re thinking as more of a forward). There are four players who’ve shot 37% or better from deep over a full season before.

As usual there are many ways this could go poorly, but for the first time in a while Tennessee has a real mix of stationary shooters, pull-up shooters, bucket-getters, quality passers, and great perimeter defenders. The two transfers poured in 48 against a projected top-15 defense. BUT! This is not about the exhibition. They do not need an exhibition to prove anything to me, because I largely already figured this was the case. At the risk of looking like a total moron, this is the first Tennessee squad since 2018-19 where you can look at the offense and say “this seems fun.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Everything else this week is paywalled, but as a treat, you get the first player free here. Enjoy. Also just subscribe if you haven’t yet, I think this is a good newsletter that you’ll like.

Let’s begin.

POINT GUARD

Zakai Zeigler
Freddie Dilione
Jahmai Mashack
Jordan Gainey

The good news first: this is the first time since 2018-19 that Tennessee has the same starting point guard as the year prior. Having a returning starter at point is perhaps undervalued in college basketball these days, given the ability to import a new starter whenever you’d like via the transfer portal. You might remember that the top two finishers in last year’s SEC had second or even third-year starters at point.

Just not having a sophomore at point is nice. No one remembers this anymore because we all have goldfish brains, but not a single Elite Eight team had a freshman point guard last year. Only two had a sophomore. Everyone else: junior or senior. In fact, zero of the Sweet Sixteen teams had a freshman starting at point. 13 of 16: junior or senior. Experience matters these days quite a bit.

Of course, not everyone’s returning experience is riding on the success or failure of an ACL surgery. Zakai Zeigler returns for Year Three at Tennessee and Year Two as a full-time starter. His first year at Tennessee saw him get around 15 possessions a game at point, which was useful experience, but it taught us a lot more about Zeigler as a Guy instead of Zeigler at point. Last year’s preview:

This is a no-star recruit that had zero offers of note until he randomly popped off the page at Peach Jam two months before Tennessee started fall practices. The only solid information given to media members in preseason was that he was fun and could shoot well. Zeigler’s shooting might’ve actually been underwhelming - 35.2% 3PT% on 125 attempts, a nasty 41% 2PT% on 122 shots - but literally everything else came in way above expectation.

Zeigler - again, a guy that I really hadn’t heard much of anything on defensively, and neither had anyone else - merely posted the 11th highest Steal Percentage (4.5%) in all of college basketball. He had the second-highest Assist Rate on the team. He finished the year fourth in scoring on Tennessee’s roster. He was the best free throw shooter on the team.

Prior to the season-ending ACL tear versus Arkansas, Zeigler had a pretty good build on his freshman season. The shooting numbers are/were still rough (31% on threes, 46% on twos) but at 84% from the line for his career I’m still convinced there’s room to grow. He also progressed in the right direction basically everywhere else. Zeigler’s fancystats are nice: +2.9 PRPG! (Torvik’s Points Above Replacement thing), +7.7 Box-Plus Minus, the only point guard in the SEC to touch a +4 Defensive Box-Plus Minus.

More than the shooting or personal offensive production was simply a more well-rounded college player. Of the guys I compared him to last year, the average second-year stats for the guys that stayed for a second year were 12 PPG, 4.8 APG, 1.8 SPG. Zeigler didn’t hit the PPG number but went 10.7 PPG/5.4 APG/2.0 SPG. The full list of guys in Tennessee history who’ve gone 10/5/2 is just 2022-23 Zakai Zeigler. (CJ Watson came close, if you want that comparison.) Of the 12 other guys who did it in SEC history, Zeigler’s the only one to do it in fewer than 30 MPG.

This is all while taking on full point guard duties because Tennessee couldn’t find a reasonable backup to support him. Zeigler’s Assist% ballooned to 36% while turnovers stayed steady year over year. Here’s the full list of high-major players, 2008-present, that posted a >35% Assist% and >4% Steal% in the same season.

I mean.

Year Three could be Zeigler taking a logical next step upward. On Torvik, Zakai has six reasonably close statistical comparisons in their sophomore seasons - all guys who played four years of college basketball, by the way. They collectively averaged the following:

• +3.8 PRPG!, which would have been top-8 in last year’s SEC.

• 14.0 PPG on 36% 3PT/44% 2PT.

• 4.4 APG.

• 1.9 SPG.

I think you can probably bump the PPG down 1-2 points and up the APG 1-2 assists. If so you’re looking at a guy heading towards a potential 12 PPG/6 APG/2 SPG season, which is a thing that has been done in the SEC one time in the last 25 seasons (2017-18 Tremont Waters, LSU).

All indications from media and staff are that Zeigler is as ready for takeoff as he can be. He’s been a full participant in practice. He’s gone through every shooting drill known to man. Seemingly no one has publicly expressed concern about how Zeigler’s recovery process has gone; he seems to have aced basically every test thrown at him. I think there’s a plausible scenario at play where due to missing a lot of offseason work it might take him a month to really round into form, but when he does you’re looking at one of the most valuable players in the conference if not the nation.

Paywall starts here. Sign up for just $30/year! I promise it’s worth it.