How Tennessee can function without Zakai Zeigler
aside from the obvious "consider prayer"
I try not to do special editions of newsletters about Tennessee men’s basketball because they already suck up a lot of my time, but this seems like one everyone wants. Not for a good reason, of course.
Zakai Zeigler, as mentioned in the graphic and the statement, tore his ACL on a non-contact play early in the Arkansas game. It’s obviously a gigantic bummer. I wrote last year about the impact Zeigler was having on me as an observer, one that I personally had not experienced since viewing Denard Robinson:
The beauty and horror of life is that we cannot tell the future. Anything, both good and bad, can reasonably happen from this point onward. All of what we know to look for going forward is based on past events. Yet those past events are so exciting, so charming, so singularly lovable that the uncertainty of the future is embraced with arms wide open.
Basketball, the beautiful game, has given Zeigler and his family a chance at a new life. It provides, and if there is justice, it will provide for him. I find myself most excited to see the ways the future will provide a career for a player who grew up in the shadows and deserves the spotlight like nothing else.
Of course, basketball is a cruel sport while simultaneously being the beautiful game, and there will be no justice. Zakai Zeigler deserved a better ending to a sophomore season that saw him emerge as a legitimate candidate for National Defensive Player of the Year and, despite all of the ups and downs, was probably Tennessee’s second-best offensive player behind Santiago Vescovi. Tennessee has depth on their roster, of course, but anytime you lose a player of Zeigler’s quality it hurts.
And yet: the season is not over. Tennessee still has a road game on Saturday at a struggling Auburn team (more on that tomorrow). They still have the SEC Tournament. And, of course, there is the NCAA Tournament looming. What do the next few weeks look like for Tennessee, exactly? What are the best options to replace Zeigler’s lost production? Also, the question everyone wants an answer to: is the season over? (No.) Are there any examples of similar teams who have overcome injuries to such a key piece? (Yes.)
Who’s next up at point?
The answer here is two-pronged: Santiago Vescovi (289 possessions this year, per Hoop-Explorer) and Jahmai Mashack (241 possessions). For Vescovi, it’s a throwback to his first two years on campus when he was the primary ball-handler and offensive initiator. For Mashack, it’s a throwback to his high school days in California, where he played point and shooting guard before playing mostly the 2 and 3 at Tennessee. The third answer here, because it will obviously be a rotation, is Josiah-Jordan James (no logged possessions, but did play point Tuesday). (Also B.J. Edwards, but it remains to be seen how much he plays.)
Of the main two options, Vescovi is probably the better pick. Lineups with Vescovi at point this season have actually been better defensively than those with Zeigler at point, likely because Vescovi commits far fewer fouls than Zeigler did. The Vescovi-only point lineups also shoot better than either the Zeigler or Mashack-at-point lineups by a hair, including a 53% hit rate on twos (a top-80 rate over a full season). Vescovi commits fewer turnovers, too, and has started to find his shooting stroke as of late.
Mashack’s more chaotic with the ball in his hands, but undeniably, he packs a punch in the paint that no other point - true or fake - on Tennessee’s roster can possibly provide. Mashack point lineups get fouled more, get far more offensive rebounds, and hold up excellently on defense to no real surprise. The downside is that we’ve seen so little of it that I’m not totally sure how much we really know yet.
James and Edwards (and Tyreke Key, I guess) are all of the same category to me. James hasn’t run point since 2019-20 (though he was arguably the best point on that team), and I prefer a James that functions 99% off-ball anyway. Edwards just has such little experience that I can’t imagine it being that great of an idea to shove him out there. The average production of an SEC freshman point since 2008 is roughly equivalent to what Tennessee is getting from Key this year, AKA a guy who’d be averaging 4/1/1 with ten minutes of play. (Also, Edwards has been pretty clearly the least-effective defender on the court when he’s played. Not his fault; just not ready yet.)
Key is an option, I guess, but he hasn’t played a possession at point since Georgia in late January. No one seems particularly eager to re-open that door. So: Vescovi and Mashack/James it is.
What will Tennessee play like?
Note that this is but a mere guess. The good news for our purposes is that Tennessee does have 500+ possessions worth of data this year in which Zeigler was not on the court, or the equivalent of seven or so games. That’s not super-telling, but it’s not nothing. Against top 100 teams it’s 308 possessions, or almost five games’ worth. Again: not nothing.
Okay, so the numbers tell us that the most likely lineup going forward is going to be something like Vescovi/Mashack?/James/Phillips?/Nkamhoua. Being a senior I think James is pretty well locked into most closing lineups. Vescovi may well average 37 minutes a night from here on out. Nkamhoua is the best of the bigs, as wild as it may sound to some. I can see a scenario where Key gets in over Mashack if he’s shooting well; I can see scenarios where Tennessee opts to close with Aidoo/Nkamhoua or Aidoo/Awaka or Nkamhoua/Awaka up top.
The best area to explore next is if there’s any stylistic differences, which they are. Lineups without Zeigler in them play slower (shocking!), moving at a pace of 65 possessions per game. Considering the Zeigler lineups were at 67, it’s not a huge leap. You’ll also see fewer threes, which isn’t that surprising, considering you just removed a guy averaging 5.5 3PAs/game from the equation.
The rest of it is deeply interesting, though. Here’s the overall on/off numbers, not adjusted for shooting luck, via Hoop-Explorer:
And then just the games against top 100 competition:
Here’s what I see, from top left to bottom right. Or whatever.
Tennessee has shot as well, if not better, with Zeigler off the court. Their three-point impact is obviously reduced, but on the whole, it’s come with a greater volume of shots (+2.4% OREB% vs. -1.6% TO% on the top, +4.5% OREB% vs. -2.1% TO% on the bottom). They’ve been more productive from two, which tracks with both taller lineups and with removing a below-average two-point shooter from the lineup.
Assists and turnovers both go down. Not a great thing, obviously, but a thing. Of course, it’s worth noting against a top-15 defense in a game where they played 38 of 40 minutes without Zeigler, Tennessee assisted on 67% of its made baskets and committed six fewer turnovers than Arkansas.
Tennessee becomes way more rim-oriented in both cases. What you lose from three you might be gaining in higher-quality attempts inside the arc. Tennessee doesn’t shift more to midrange jumpers; they just attack the rim like crazy. It’s not purely just taking Zeigler off the floor, either. Vescovi, Aidoo, Phillips, and Mashack all feature more in the paint in these non-Zeigler lineups.
Tennessee shoots worse from three. Duh. Not ideal.
Tennessee’s defense becomes…better without Zeigler? This I think is less a truth of data and more a function of randomness against Zeigler. Nothing about Zeigler on the court suggests that Tennessee’s defense is somehow going to go from #1 in America to #1 But Also in Poland Somehow. Still: very similar shooting splits and fewer fouls (Zeigler did commit 3.5 fouls per 40 in SEC play) can help that.
The rim FG%, both offensively and defensively, can…I guess be explained? The lower rim FG% on offense is presumably a function of losing Zeigler for those drives to the basket that always seem to work. Defensively Tennessee has favored a completely different frontcourt rotation when Zeigler is on versus off. The most-used pairing is the bully-ball of Plavsic and Nkamhoua, with Nkamhoua/Awaka and Nkamhoua/Aidoo close behind. I don’t think it means much because it’s a backcourt injury, not a frontcourt one.
Lastly, Tennessee
There’s also some drilling-down into PBP splits that can be done. I would caution against reading into it all that much, but while Tennessee’s amount of ball-handler scoring and assists obviously fall, it increases for big-to-big passing and generally sees a big rise in assists at the basket. Tennessee’s always been good at the extra pass anyway, so no surprise there. The real takeaway here is that Tennessee can probably expect to take a step back in ball movement offensively, but a step forward in offensive rebounding and defensive fouling.
Beyond that, I think this is just something you have to wait and see on. Tennessee’s offense has generally been better with Zeigler, and he’s obviously a lovely player, but this doesn’t carry the impact that, I don’t know, a Zach Edey or Marcus Sasser season-ender would bring. Zeigler is excellent. Zeigler is Tennessee’s second or third-best player, depending on your metric of favor. Zeigler does not single-handedly decide an early end for Tennessee, much like Olivier Nkamhoua did not a year ago.
Worth noting here: I reached out to Evan Miyakawa of EvanMiya.com to project how Zeigler’s injury would affect Tennessee. In his ratings, it drops Tennessee from #2 to #3. A similar tool on Bart Torvik’s site dropped Tennessee from #3 to #7. The point: Tennessee is still probably pretty good.
What are some examples of teams that overcame similar late-season injuries to do well in March?
Luckily or unluckily, you follow the one sport that features something like this basically every year. Below is an incomplete list of teams seeded 5 or higher (Tennessee’s realistic floor is a 4, but just being safe here) that suffered a season-ending injury to a starter or starters and went on to achieve/overachieve their seed expectations. List is from most recent to furthest out. Please note that this is entirely based on memory because no one on the Internet is sicko enough to source it.
2021-22 Houston lost Marcus Sasser, the best player on their team, in the final game before AAC play began. They earned a 5 seed, but went on to make the Elite Eight.
2020-21 Michigan lost Isaiah Livers, a 13 PPG/6 RPG player, to injury mere days before the COVID Tournament. They made the Elite Eight as a 1 seed.
2020-21 Villanova lost Collin Gillespie, the Big East Player of the Year, three games before the COVID Tournament. They made the Sweet Sixteen as a 5 seed.
2018-19 Auburn did not have a key injury before the Tournament, but in a tight Sweet 16 game against North Carolina, #2 scorer Chuma Okeke went down with a season-ending injury. They made the Final Four as a 5 seed.
2016-17 Oregon lost starting center Chris Boucher to injury in the Pac-12 Tournament. They were given a 3 seed and made the Final Four.
2016-17 Florida lost starting center John Egbunu to injury in mid-February. They made the Elite Eight as a 4 seed.
2014-15 Wisconsin lost starting point guard Traevon Jackson to injury in Big Ten play. They merely came up a few points short of a national title as a 1 seed.
2013-14 Arizona lost their best player, Brandon Ashley, to a season-ending injury in February. They came up a point short of the Final Four as a 1 seed.
Every year, someone overcomes injury and strife to go pretty far, further than many expect. There’s as many cases of that as there are teams achieving exactly what they were supposed to or underachieving. The rush to declare this season over is a bit much to me (it also seems to be coming from certain media members who’ve already made their opinions on Tennessee public); I let’s just see where this goes first and what the draw looks like next Sunday before we commence full freakout.
The Arkansas performance felt emotionally driven. The boys playing for their brother. Do you see a major let down in a game against a a team in Auburn that is going to have a ton of juice on the plains?