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Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler will not play against Florida on Saturday.
The eighth-ranked Volunteers’ leader at the point was listed as out on the injury report published by the conference Saturday morning. Zeigler briefly left Tuesday’s game against Kentucky with a right knee injury but came back to start the second half and eventually finished the game for Tennessee. According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Zeigler did not practice on Thursday, putting his status for the game in jeopardy.
Zeigler has started in each of Tennessee’s first 21 games of the season and he leads the team in minutes played, averaging 34.3 a night. He is the Vols’ second-leading scorer, with 12.3 points per game. He also averages an SEC-leading 7.4 assists per game and 2.1 steals per game.
Without Zeigler, Tennessee is expected to turn to sixth man Jordan Gainey as its lead guard. Gainey is more of an off-ball guard, so there will likely be some bumps along the way. He averages 10.8 points and 1.7 assists per game this season. Forward Igor Milicic Jr. is the only other player in the Tennessee rotation that averages at least 2 assists per game.
The Volunteers (17-4, 4-4 SEC) host the fifth-ranked Gators (18-2, 5-2) at noon ET on ESPN on Saturday. Tennessee is a 3-point favorite, via bet365. Tennessee residents looking to bet on the game can do so with this bet365 Tennessee bonus code.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
