Tennessee basketball was at a cross roads in the spring of 2021. Two years removed from the end of Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield’s tenures, the Vols program had grown a bit stagnant. The 2020 team wasn’t going to make the NCAA Tournament before COVID-19 cancelled it and the 2021 team lost in the first round of the tournament after a bad final six weeks of the season.
The Vols had a few key players coming back including Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James. However, the Vols were losing two freshman starters to the NBA and lost two assistant coaches.
“We felt like we’d got it going and now could we sustain it? And that’s the hard part,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said on Friday.
But Tennessee aced the offseason. Rick Barnes added Justin Gainey and Rod Clark to his staff and they went to work adding to the roster. The Vols brought in a seven-player recruiting class that have led the program to their best four-year stretch in program history.
Kennedy Chandler and Jahmai Mashack had already signed. Chandler was a one-and-done, but proved to be the best player on Tennessee’s first SEC Tournament Championship team since 1979. Jonas Aidoo was headed to play at Marquette with Gainey but changed plans and came to Tennessee. Before transferring to Arkansas, Aidoo was a three-year solid player at Tennessee and an All-SEC selection in 2024.
The Vols found the hidden gem late with Zakai Zeigler dazzling Barnes and his staff at Peach Jam in July before enrolling at Tennessee in July.
Zeigler, Chandler, Mashack and Aidoo were the four players from that class that made major impacts in Knoxville. Others like Vescovi and James and certainly Dalton Knecht deserve an abundance of credit for the program’s success as of late. But those four, all in one recruiting class, were key in giving Tennessee a second great run under Barnes.
“You’ve got to give, especially those two (Zeigler and Mashack), great credit for it,” Barnes said. “I mean, certainly Kennedy had a major impact. Jonas did his part when he was here, but really Jahmai and Z, they have, I’m telling you it’s amazing the impact. And it’s not just on the court.”
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The list of achievements in Zeigler and Mashack’s four years is remarkable. They’ve spent every week of their college career ranked in the AP Top 25. They’ve won the a SEC Regular-Season and Tournament Championship. Tennessee has totaled two of the program’s 10 Sweet 16 appearances and one of the program’s two Elite Eight appearance.
With Tennessee’s 75-65 win over South Carolina, Zeigler and Mashack finished their careers 60-5 at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. It also marked Tennessee’s 25th win of the season. The Vols have won 25 games each of the last four seasons. Tennessee had five 25-win seasons prior to the last four.
And while other players like Aidoo, Chandler, Chaz Lanier and Jordan Gainey were important, Zeigler and Mashack have been through it all. In modern college basketball, that is no given. That’s what made Tennessee’s senior day on Saturday so special.
“Those two guys serving for the four years have lived up to our motto, It’s Not About Me, INAM, as well as any two players that have ever come through the program,” Barnes said postgame.
“Jahmai and Z, it is emotional. I got emotional with them because I know how hard I’ve been on them and I know there’s days they walk out of this building, probably don’t want to see me again. But they never showed that side. I know how they had to feel because I was tough on them. But I love them.”
Zeigler and Mashack have given Tennessee its best stretch in program history. No one has achieved more. The only question remaining is what else can they do? The duo has one more run in March and the program’s first Final Four would be quite the ending to already storied careers.
“We’re set up perfectly. We’re all clicking really good,” Jordan Gainey said of where the team is entering the postseason. “We’re dangerous … and really prepared for March.”
