As Tennessee basketball begins postseason play this weekend at the SEC Tournament in Nashville, a pair of Vols are in striking distance of program records.
Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler is chasing the single-season and career assist record while Chaz Lanier is chasing the single-season made three-pointers record.
Zeigler breaking the single-season assist record is only a formality at this point. The senior point guard needs just four more assists to break Rodney Woods’ record of 227 assists during the 19745-75 season. There’s only been three games this season where Zeigler has totaled less than four assists so he will likely break the record in the Vols’ SEC Tournament opener Friday.
Whether Zeigler can break Johnny Darden’s (1975-79) career record of 715 assists is more up in the air. Zeigler is currently at 696 career assists, needing 19 assists to tie Darden’s record and 20 to become the all-time assist leader.
If Tennessee wins at least a couple games this month, Zeigler’s chances of breaking the career record as well as the season record is very high.
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Chris Lofton is the only player in Tennessee basketball history that has made more three-pointers in a single season than Chaz Lanier. The super senior shooting guard finished the regular season with 105 made three-pointers which is behind three different Lofton seasons.
Lanier needs to make just two three-pointers to pass Lofton’s effort in his junior season, 10 three-pointers to pass Lofton’s sophomore season but must make 14 three-pointers to break Lofton’s program single-season record of 118 during his senior campaign.
Unless Lanier gets on an incredible heater, which is certainly possible, Tennessee needs to win three or four postseason games to give the North Florida transfer a strong chance of breaking Lofton’s record.
Both Zeigler and Lanier landed on the All-SEC teams this week. The coaches voted Zeigler on the first team and Lanier on the second team while the AP flipped it and voted Lanier on the first team and Zeigler on the second team.
The SEC’s coaches voted Zeigler as the Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight season and Lanier as the Newcomer of the Year.
Sporting News voted both Zeigler and Lanier to their All-American teams earlier this week making the pair the first Tennessee teammates to earn the All-American honors in the same season since Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld.
