This is Chaz Lanier's one and only NCAA basketball tournament, and he is making the most of it.
Tennessee's fifth-year senior guard who spent his first four seasons at North Florida scorched through the first two rounds last week, when the Volunteers easily dispatched of Wofford and UCLA. Lanier torched the 15th-seeded Terriers for 29 points during a 77-62 victory and added 20 more against the seventh-seeded Bruins in a 67-58 win, and he heads into Tennessee's Sweet 16 pairing with third-seeded Kentucky in Indianapolis on Friday (7:39 p.m. on TBS) having made 10 of 18 attempts from 3-point range in NCAA play.
"What's most impressive is the fact he hasn't changed any approach into the tournament," Vols coach Rick Barnes said. "We understand that we're in the tournament, and we understand what this time of year is about, but he hasn't strayed away from his routine and what he needs to do. In these last three or so weeks, he's been very aggressive shooting the ball, and he's gotten so much better at paying attention to detail. It's something he really embraced.
"When he came in, he was a pretty cool, calm guy. He gives all the glory to God, and he's grounded in a way that it's not about him. He knows he's part of a good team, and he's willing to do whatever he needs to do to help. He's not selfish, and in his own way he sets a great example."
The 6-foot-5, 207-pounder from Nashville has started all 36 games this season for the Vols (27-9), averaging a team-high 18.1 points per game. His 41.0% accuracy from 3-point range ranks second in the Southeastern Conference to Kentucky's Koby Brea (43.8%), and his 120 makes from long range are a single-season program record.
Chris Lofton held the previous Tennessee standard with 118 during the 2007-08 season.
"It's just a blessing, and I want to give a shout-out to my teammates as well," Lanier said. "They're always setting good screens and passing me the ball on the money, so without them I wouldn't be making the shots."
Lanier's success on the offensive end, according to his veteran teammates, has added to the motivation to always play well defensively.
"It definitely gives a big boost," Jahmai Mashack said. "We always tell him to just go out there and hoop, and it definitely frees us up for getting a lot of energy on the defensive end and for trying to create turnovers. When he's hot, you try give him the basketball, and that's kind of how you play."
Said Zakai Zeigler: "He puts the work in, and you expect him to take those shots. I tell him that every time he shoots the ball, I think it's going in, and if he misses, I want him to shoot the next one. When he's shooting the ball like this, it's going to pick us up even more."
Lanier has given Barnes and the Vols a second consecutive monster splash out of the transfer portal, with last season's team having ridden the success of SEC player of the year Dalton Knecht to the Elite Eight. A win Friday against Kentucky (24-11) would result in a second straight Elite Eight journey for the Vols and the third such trip in program history.
Barnes and his staff have avoided comparing Lanier to Knecht, but one obvious similarity is the way each improved significantly during his one memorable season in Knoxville.
"Chaz has continued to get better, and you would expect that," Barnes said. "He went through a learning year in what is arguably the greatest college basketball league ever against some physical guys and terrific coaches and players who know how to guard people. He had to learn it on the run, and he's done that.
"He's just gotten so much better, and in terms of his career and future, I think he's just getting started."
Retirement talk
The 70-year-old Barnes was asked Thursday in Indianapolis whether this 10th season with the Vols would be his last.
"I think God will make it perfectly clear when he wants me to step down and my time will be up, but it's not now," Barnes said. "If it is, I don't feel that. I know how hard we're working right now, and we've already had a young man on campus after we got back Saturday. On Sunday, we had a young man on campus who committed to us.
"We're already planning to have a team next year, and I fully plan to be a part of it. Again, I think when my time's up, I truly believe God will make it clear to me where he wants me to go next and do next, but I haven't thought about that in the least bit."
Odds and ends
This is the seventh straight Kentucky-Tennessee game in which the Vols are the higher-ranked team, but the Wildcats have won five of the past six meetings. ... The only other occasion in which the Vols faced another SEC team in a postseason tournament was in 1990, when Vanderbilt defeated visiting Tennessee 89-85 in an NIT second-round contest. ... Tennessee, Alabama and Houston are the only schools in the men's Sweet 16 for a third straight year. ... Zeigler's first assist Friday night would be his 261st this season, which would allow him to break the SEC's single-season record he currently shares with Sean Tuohy of Ole Miss, who set the standard in 1979-80.
Contact David Paschall at [email protected].