Tennessee basketball is in Year 3 of a rebuild under Rick Barnes following the NBA departures of Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield and Jordan Bone. The Vols are facing North Carolina, a Tar Heels squad that will fall just short of a national title to Kansas in a little over 4 months.

Tennessee's Zakai Ziegler repeats as SEC defensive player of the year. The Vols are heading into the SEC tournament as the number four seed and have intentions to be crowned as conference champions by the end of the tournament.

The most notable of those is Zakai Zeigler repeating as SEC Defensive Player of the Year. He also received First Team All-SEC and SEC All-Defensive Team status. Ziegler is the first player in conference history to collect four SEC All-Defensive Team distinctions, while only three others have collected three.