It’s always tough to see the era of players come to an end in the NCAA Tournament. For Tennessee Basketball, that’s what made the 2008 Sweet 16 loss to the Louisville Cardinals and the 2019 Sweet 16 loss to the Purdue Boilermakers so tough to deal with.
One marked the end of the Chris Lofton/JaJuan Smith era, the other the end of the Grant Williams/Admiral Schofield era, and everybody knew it at the time. This year, the Vols’ 69-50 loss to the Houston Cougars marked the end of the Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack era, and that’s just as tough.
However, it wasn’t just the end of an era for players.
Sunday’s Elite Eight game was the last call for Vol Network play-by-play broadcaster Bob Kesling and color commentator Bert Bertelkamp. Kesling had been calling UT Football and basketball games since 1999, the direct replacement to John Ward, and Bertelkamp had been calling Tennessee Basketball games since that same season.
Together, these two oversaw the most successful period in the history of program, starting with their first year, when under Jerry Green, the program reached the Sweet 16 and set a school-record for wins. They then lasted through the school’s only Elite Eight runs, 30-win seasons and No. 1 rankings.
Everybody is going to miss those two.
As for the players, though, seeing the Zeigler/Mashack era end is also painful. They aren’t the Lofton/Williams types who could compete for Player of the Year. In fact, throughout their tenure at UT, they were role players while somebody else was the elite scorer.
Chaz Lanier set the single-season record for three-pointers this year. Dalton Knecht was a generational talent last year. However, through it all, Zeigler and Mashack were key contributors, and they pulled off the rare feat these days of being key players in an elite program and also four-year guys.
There is no doubt that in terms of team success, Zeigler and Mashack are the most accomplished players in Tennessee Basketball history, and Zeigler, a two-time SEC Player of the Year, is the greatest point guard in school history. Seeing his career end like this hurts.
This is what’s so brutal about March Madness. Everything you’re loving about an era can end in the blink of an eye, and that’s what happened to UT on Sunday. However, for the Vols, this marked the end of two special eras, more unique than anything else. That makes the loss doubly hard to take.
