KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Two members of the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team, Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler, made the cut for the John R. Wooden Award Top 15 National Ballot.
The Volunteers are the only team with two selections, as named by the Los Angeles Athletic Club. They are joined by three other SEC competitors—Auburn’s Johni Broome, Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr., and Alabama’s Mark Sears—to give the league a third of the names on the ballot.
Selected by a panel of national college basketball experts, the list comprises 15 student-athletes who are candidates for the Wooden Award All-American Team and the Wooden Award Player of the Year.
Previously, Lanier was included on both the Midseason Top 25 Watch List and the Late Midseason Top 20 Watch List. Zeigler, meanwhile, was on the initial list, did not make the trim to 20 and then got added back in for the top 15 list. He is one of three players—the other are Houston’s L.J. Cryer and Wisconsin’s John Tonje—on the national ballot who were not featured in the top 20.
Lanier, a finalist for the Jerry West Award, was voted both the SEC Newcomer of the Year and a Second Team All-SEC designee. The fifth-year guard is averaging 17.9 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.0 assist per game, while shooting 40.5 percent from beyond the arc and starting all 31 games.
A 6-foot-5, 207-pounder who spent the first four years of his career at North Florida, Lanier has already earned Field of 68 Second Team All-America status and College Hoops Today Third Team All-America distinction in 2024-25. He is a member of the Naismith Trophy Midseason Team and the USBWA Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List.
Lanier sits top-10 in Division I in both made 3-pointers and made 3-pointers per game (3.39), both of which rank top-four on Tennessee’s single-season leaderboard. He is third in the SEC in 3-point percentage and made field goals (197), plus fifth in points per game. The Nashville, Tenn., native has recorded double-digit points in 29 of 31 contests, eclipsing 20 in 12 of them.
A Bob Cousy Award finalist, Zeigler collected both SEC Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-SEC status for the second season in a row. The senior guard is averaging 13.1 points, 7.5 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game on the year, starting in all 30 of his appearances.
Zeigler, like Lanier, is on the Naismith Trophy Midseason Team and the USBWA Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List, plus made the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Watch List for the third consecutive season. The 5-foot-9, 172-pounder has posted six-plus assists in all but five of his appearances in 2024-25, with eight-plus in half of them.
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Zeigler ranks fifth nationally in assists per game, while his 224 total assists are three shy of the Tennessee single-season record and seven away of a top-10 spot on the SEC’s single-season list.
The John R. Wooden Award is presented annually to the most outstanding player in collegiate basketball. Established in 1976 by John Wooden and the Wooden Award National Steering Committee, the award evaluates candidates not only on their skills in passing, shooting, dribbling, defending and rebounding, but also on their overall contributions to their teams. All players on the ballot have been certified by their respective universities as meeting or exceeding the qualifications set forth by Coach Wooden when the award was established. These qualifications include:
– Candidates must be full-time students at an accredited NCAA college or university.
– Candidates must be making progress toward graduation and maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 2.00 since enrolling.
– Candidates must contribute significantly to their team’s success.
– Candidates must excel in both offensive and defensive aspects of the game.
– Candidates must be evaluated based on their performance over the entire season.
– Candidates must demonstrate strength of character, both on and off the court.
Voting will take place from March 10 to March 24, with voters considering a player’s entire season, including the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. The Wooden Award All-American Team will then be announced during the week of the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight, while finalists for trophy Wooden Award will be revealed April 1 on ESPN.
Lanier, Zeigler and No. 8/6 Tennessee (25-6, 12-6 SEC) are back in action Friday at 3:30 p.m. ET in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals against a to-be-determined team, live on ESPN from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn.
To keep up with the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team on social media, follow @Vol_Hoops on Instagram and X/Twitter, as well as /tennesseebasketball on Facebook.
WOODEN AWARD TOP 15 NATIONAL BALLOT
Johni Broome, Auburn
Walter Clayton Jr., Florida
L.J. Cryer, Houston
Hunter Dickinson, Kansas
Eric Dixon, Villanova
Cooper Flagg, Duke
P.J. Haggerty, Memphis
Dylan Harper, Rutgers
Kam Jones, Marquette
Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton
Chaz Lanier, Tennessee
Mark Sears, Alabama
Braden Smith, Purdue
John Tonje, Wisconsin
Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee
