Zakai Zeigler’s athletic eligibility at Tennessee expired with the end of the Volunteers’ 2024-25 men’s basketball season. However, the guard has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, requesting a fifth year of qualification.
Zeigler has already played four seasons for Tennessee, having started his college career in 2021, one year after the 2020-21 class was permitted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, one year of qualification was forfeited.
Zeigler is seeking a preliminary injunction in the case, filed in the Eastern District Court of Tennessee, to enable him to participate in the 2025-26 season. He is disputing the NCAA regulation limiting an athlete’s eligibility to four years in a five-year period.
Zeigler, 22, will not be able to earn NIL money for a fifth year since he has exhausted his eligibility. As the complaint argues, this deprives him of a fifth year, which is the most profitable year of the eligibility window for the great majority of athletes.
How rewarding? The complaint claims that Zeigler may make between $2 million and $4 million in a fifth year, owing to his track record of success and exposure playing in the SEC. Those numbers are estimates from Spyre Sports Group, which manages Tennessee’s NIL collective.
Athletes who receive a redshirt are granted a fifth year of eligibility, allowing them to make NIL money for another year. A freshman who was redshirted, for example, would still be able to collect NIL funds even if he or she does not play.
According to the lawsuit, the documents for which were uploaded online by Boise State professor Sam Ehrlich:
Many athletes, on the other hand, participate in the fifth year of their eligibility. And they can receive NIL compensation for all five years. If Zeigler had been unable to participate in sports for one of those four years, due to redshirting or other reasons, NCAA laws allow him to participate again next year. Even if he had slowed his academic progress and taken five years to graduate, this would be true.
Zeigler graduated in May with a degree in retail and merchandising management and plans to pursue a graduate degree during his fifth year of eligibility.
This differs from the lawsuit filed by Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia against the NCAA, alleging that he should be granted a fifth year of eligibility because he spent his first two years at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior institution. Pavia was given an injunction in December, allowing him to play the 2025 college football season.
In his final season with the Volunteers, the 5-foot-9 Zeigler averaged 13. 6 points, 7. 4 assists, and 1. 9 steals while shooting 32% on 122 3-point attempts. He was chosen as a third-team All-American, and received first-team All-SEC and SEC defensive player of the year awards in back-to-back seasons. The Volunteers finished 30-8, 12-6 in the SEC, and reached the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight before falling to Houston.
Zeigler holds the Tennessee single-season (275) and career (747) records for assists, as well as the career steals mark (251).
