Tennessee Gets One Named to Dickie V’s Midseason All-Rolls Royce Team

Tennessee Basketball
Photo via Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier was named a Second Team All-Rolls Royce selection by ESPN’s Dick Vitale on Monday.

Dickie V’s midseason awards list is just for fun on ESPN and includes an honorable mention from Tennessee, too.

Lanier, Tennessee’s senior transfer addition from North Florida last offseason, is one of five players on the second team alongside Rutgers’ Dylan Harper, Purdue’s Braden Smith, Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, and Memphis’ PJ Haggerty.

“The Volunteers have a weapon in Chaz Lanier! This guy is tough as nails, baby, and he’s delivering in crunch time,” Vitale has written for ESPN with his typical on-air flair. “Whether it’s a clutch 3 or a key stop on defense, Chaz has been Mr. Dependable for Tennessee. Give him some love, folks!”

The Nashville native is averaging 18.1 points per game through 18 games this season for Tennessee in 30.2 minutes per game on the court. Lanier got out to a great start in SEC play with a season-high 29 points against Arkansas but has struggled in league play since. In the Vols’ four games since Arkansas, Lanier is averaging just 10.5 points per game including a five-point night in the Vols’ win over Georgia last Wednesday. The 6-foot-4 guard did climb back up to 17 points in Tennessee’s loss against Vanderbilt, his highest scoring output since Arkansas, but missed a game-tying free-throw attempt with three seconds left.

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Even when he’s not scoring, though, Lanier is still taking a good bit of attention from the opposing defense, which leaves other players open for opportunity.

“The Vols dealt with some foul trouble early in the first half (against Vanderbilt), right, they face guarded Lanier, which, I mean, Zakai Zeigler was able to get in the paint and the reason why (Felix) Okpara got like 75 lobs at the rim was because Rick Barnes just put Chaz Lanier in the deep corner so every time Zakai got in there, there was no tagger so it was a dunk show,” Field of 68’s Rob Dauster said in a recent show.

Tennessee’s going to need Lanier to shake his shooting slump sooner rather than later, though. Lanier’s 17 points on Saturday was encouraging from a scoring perspective but he’ll need to stay consistent to keep Tennessee competitive. Six of the Vols’ next seven opponents are all ranked in the AP Top 25 including the next five-straight games.

Vols’ guard Zakai Zeigler is listed as one of seven honorable mentions from Dickie V with only 10 players selected for the All-Rolls Royce teams. Zeigler is averaging 12.3 points per game, good for second behind Lanier on Tennessee’s roster. The 5-foot-9 guard is also leading Tennessee in assists per game (7.7) and free throw percentage (85.9%) on the season.

Check out Dickie V’s full All-Rolls Royce midseason roster here.

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