Rick Barnes’ Strategy to Elevate Zakai Zeigler’s Game!

Rick Barnes’ Strategy to Elevate Zakai Zeigler’s Game!

Barnes has raised his expectations for his point guard from previous levels.

It was a week ago against South Carolina that Zakai Zeigler had his worst performance of the year. With just three assists, the junior point guard was unable to generate any offensive movement in the Gamecocks defeat, scoring just two points.

However, Rick Barnes didn’t appear to be concerned about that minor glitch in manufacturing. Barnes, however, used a different strategy. Barnes pushed his point guard to alter his mindset completely as they embarked on one of their hardest road trips of the year.

We are aware that Rick has no trouble pursuing men, and he expects Zeigler to follow suit when he feels it is appropriate.

“Well, in all honesty, I told him that I thought he had to change his demeanor,” Barnes said after the win over Kentucky. “I told him, I think he’s one of the best point guards in the country. But I told him, the whole team at some point in time, I can’t be the only guy getting on guys.

“I said, you’ve gotta do that because I am relentless in terms of details and those type of things, but I said, we can’t be a team that when we’re down saying to each other, ‘we’re good, we’re good’ when it’s not good.”

It’s obvious that Barnes thinks highly of Zeigler. While Zeigler was still healing from his ACL tear, Barnes placed him on the bench next to him during a preseason scrimmage so Zeigler could observe the action from his perspective.

He even delegated Zeigler the task of explaining to players why they had been removed from the game following specific infractions.

Zeigler is obviously improving on the court thanks to the coaching and trust. Apart from that game against South Carolina, Zeigler has been performing at the best level we have seen since he came to Knoxville.

After speaking with Barnes following the South Carolina game, Zeigler proceeded to score 26 points and dish out 13 assists. That is what total and absolute command of the offense appears like.

“We’ve got to be transparent and you guys were at practice yesterday,” Barnes said. “The last two days, he did a great job where he took it on himself. Said, ‘Hey, I’m the guy that’s supposed to be driving this car, and I’m going to make sure that guys are doing what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it and not, I’m going to let them know about it. So tonight I thought he went through a stretch a little bit where he was trying to do a little bit too much, but overall I thought he was terrific.”

After a bad night, if you’ve observed Zeigler for the past three years, you would anticipate nothing less. He always finds a way to snap back into shape and never lets one game affect the other. He looked back to form against Kentucky, and on Wednesday night he’ll try to carry that energy into his match against LSU.

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