Zakai Zeigler injury update: Rick Barnes revealed why status changed vs. Florida

The Tennessee Volunteers steamrolled the Florida Gators on Saturday afternoon, pulling away in the second half for a comfortable 64-44 victory. Not only was it a big-time win over their heated rivals, but it was a highly anticipated clash of two top 10 teams. They handed the Gators just their third loss of the year. Not only did the Vols win comfortably, they did so without Igor Milicic (illness) and Zakai Zeigler (knee injury). Following the game, Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes revealed why Zeigler’s status changed against Florida.

“I want to coach who’s out here. I don’t look at it (the medical report). I said, you come out and tell me something. I’ll listen to ya, but whosever out here we’re gonna try to get ready to play. I know that if Zakai could have gone he would have. Igor [Milicic] came in today. He did everything he could to get enough fluid in him. He fully wanted to try but he couldn’t,” Barnes explained.

“And I think the way we handle it with those guys, we just talk about, once you get into conference play you’re gonna have up and downs. You’re gonna have some bumps in the road. You don’t know what they are but you expect them. And see how we respond to them. We talked about it last night. This is a chance to respond to a tough situation here. Everybody had panicked because we weren’t making shots. I think I said we’ve lost four games to four really good teams. One of the games against an outstanding team, a team that had beaten us by 30 a month ago. And I think it was just all the credit and I thought that Chris Walker during his power talk this morning was awesome,” Barnes continued.

“He just said I hope you guys know it’s a blessing to have a chance to play in this game today, as it is for me to coach the game. And so, we went about our prep, and I think our guys were focused and did what we needed to do to win a game today,” Barnes finished.

Tennessee finished with three players in double figures, with Chaz Lanier leading the group with 19 points and 5 rebounds. Jordan Gainey chipped in 16 points, four points, four assists, and three steals. Felix Okpara nearly had a double-double with 10 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

With the win, Tennessee improved to 18-4 and 5-4 in the SEC. Florida dropped to 18-3 and 5-3 in the SEC.