Tennessee basketball’s Zakai Zeigler has gone back-to-back.
The Vols’ point guard is the 2025 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, according to a vote by the league’s coaches. The SEC’s coaches gave Zeigler the top defensive honor in the conference for the second straight season while also voting him as a First Team All-SEC selection for a second straight season.
Zeigler is just the third ever player to win SEC Defensive Player of the Year multiple times joining Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado and Texas A&M’s Robert Williams III. Zeigler is also the first player to ever land on the SEC All-Defensive Team four times.
The 5-foot-9 point guard is the “head of the snake” for a Tennessee defense that ended the regular season ranked No. 1 nationally in KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency. Zeigler oft picks up opposing point guards 94 feet from the basket and applies constant pressure to opposing offenses.
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Zeigler is averaging 1.9 steals per game this season and was a bit more efficient in SEC play, averaging 2.1 steals per game in the 17 conference games he played. His 239 career steals in the most in Tennessee history.
The senior point guard ranks third in the SEC this season in steals per game behind Mississippi State’s Cameron Matthews (2.5) and Missouri’s Anthony Robinson II (2.0).
Tennessee was the only school with two players on the SEC All-Defensive Team as Jahmai Mashack joined Zeigler on the team. In a show of how strong the Vols’ defense is this season, Mashack earned the Field of 68’s National Defensive Player of the Year Award.
The Vols finished the regular season with a 25-6 (12-6 SEC) record, earning the four-seed in this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville. Tennessee has a double-bye to the semifinals on Friday where they’ll face one of Vanderbilt, Texas or Texas A&M.
Tennessee enters the week as a two-seed in the East Region with one-seed Duke. The Blue Devils moved up to the No. 1 team in this week’s AP Poll but remains behind Auburn in seed lists.
