Rick Barnes making change at starting point guard with Zakai Zeigler 'totally out of control'

NASHVILLE — Back in August, Zakai Zeigler said his role didn’t matter. He could keep being the sixth man for Tennessee, like he did during his breakout freshman season. Or he could step into the starting point guard role vacated by Kennedy Chandler’s departure for the NBA Draft.

“I have no problem coming off the bench, starting, being a 10th man off the bench,” he said then. “As long as we’re winning. If everybody is happy, I’m happy. So it’s no different approach.”

Rick Barnes wasn’t happy on Sunday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena. Zeigler wasn’t either. No one associated with the Tennessee basketball program was.

The 11th-rankled Vols made just 16 of 63 shots from the field, committed 15 turnovers and were outscored by 14 points in the second half of a 78-66 loss to Colorado on Sunday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena.

The dead-on-arrival performance started, Barnes said, in the backcourt.  

“Our guard play wasn’t what it needs to be,” Barnes said.

Zeigler scored 12 points but it came on 4-for-12 shooting with a pair of turnovers. Senior guard Santiago Vescovi scored four points on his first shot — he made a deep 3-pointer falling down, then made the foul shot after drawing contact — but finished with 11 points while going 2-for-13 from the floor, including a 2-for-11 mark at the 3-point line, to go with four turnovers.

“That’s a problem,” Barnes said of the six combined turnovers from the two. 

In September, the day before Tennessee officially opened preseason practice, Barnes said Zeigler had told him he’d prefer to come off the bench. 

“To be quite frank, Zakai doesn’t want to start,” Barnes said at the time. “He feels like he can impact the game coming off (the bench), which I think has been good for our team.”

But there he was, starting in the preseason and staying there in the season-opener Monday against Tennessee Tech. And again on Sunday against Colorado. 

Tennessee making changes in struggling backcourt

Now, though, that changes. Barnes had already addressed the situation with Zeigler before coming to his postgame press conference. 

“Zakai was wild,” Barnes said. “Tonight, he was out of control. He was totally out of control to the point where I’ve already told him ‘you’re not starting’ because him starting the game hasn’t worked very well in terms of the way we want to get started. 

“So we’ll have to make a decision on how we want to go that way.” 

Zeigler scored 12 points against Tennessee Tech on Monday, going 4-for-14 from the field with five assists to two turnovers. Vescovi wasn’t much better, finishing with nine points on 3-for-8 shooting, with five assists of his own but three more turnovers. 

Barnes didn’t spare Vescovi after the game, either. 

“I think he tries to do too much,” he said. “I think he needs to play the role we need him to play. When he’s not making shots and he’s still open he has to shoot the ball because I think guys are expecting him to shoot it and when he starts driving, he and (Zeigler) both are out of control. We don’t know what’s going on. Guys don’t know.”

Vols host Florida Gulf Coast on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, SEC Network+)

The Vols shot poorly in the first half against Tennessee Tech, too, going 4-for-21 from the 3-point line and closing the half with 10 straight missed threes before heating up in the second half. They were 5-for-9 inside the arc.  

This time, there was no change after halftime. The Vols stayed in a rush and shots kept missing.

“It goes back,” Barnes said, “there’s going to be games where if they take shots within our offense they’re going to make shots. It’s when shots are rushed (that they’re missed). When we come off screens knowing the shots that we have worked on for years … but when (Vescovi) loses his confidence, now he thinks that every time I get it I have to go create things for my teammates.

“He gets himself in trouble. That’s where the turnovers come from as opposed to letting the guys around him create some more for him.”

Barnes hinted at James returning to the starting lineup when he gets his legs fully under him. James missed the preseason while recovering from an offseason knee issue.

Indiana State transfer guard Tyreke Key, Tennessee’s leading scorer, is an option to replace Zeigler at point guard. Freshman BJ Edwards didn’t play on Sunday and played only the final three minutes against Tennessee Tech.

Barnes will be making changes in an attempt to find the answer, whatever it is.

“We have to get better execution at the start of the game,” he said. “We can’t start the game by throwing it out of bounds on the very first possession of the game. When things aren’t going well one guy can’t think I’m going to go make this happen.”

“… Our guards, good guards — and we have good guards — they have to make the game easier for everybody including themselves. They can do that by playing together and believing in what we’re doing and not thinking I’ve got to score, I’ve got to score.”