Tennessee rips Missouri 72-45 for 4th straight win

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KNOXVILLE -- Jordan McRae landed after one of the easiest reverse dunks he'll ever have, turned toward Tennessee's bench and flashed a smile at his teammates.

That play went just liked he planned.

The entire afternoon went just like he'd hoped, too.

McRae scored only 11 points, but that was of little concern to Tennessee's senior guard and leading scorer after the Volunteers kept up their late-season roll of dominant performances in a 72-45 pasting of fellow NCAA tournament bubble team in front of a season-high crowd of 18,519 at Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday afternoon.

"I just told Darius [Thompson] the play before, 'If you get the rebound, I'm out of there,'" McRae said of the play that resulted in what he hopes was his final basket at Thompson-Boling. "It just happened exactly how I just told him. I was planning to do something, but with [Missouri's Jabari Brown] running that fast behind me, that's all I could get done.

"Going out on a dunk, you know, that's the way you've got to go out."

Tennessee (20-11, 11-7 SEC) won its fourth straight game since a loss at Texas A&M, and the Vols have won their past three games against Vanderbilt, Auburn and Missouri by a combined 93 points.

The win wrapped up the fourth seed and a double-bye in next week's SEC tournament in Atlanta, and Tennessee will open play on Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals against either Arkansas, Auburn or South Carolina.

As for what Saturday's rout did for the Vols' NCAA tournament hopes, they're not conceding anything.

"I definitely feel like this game should definitely put us over the top," said Vols big man Jarnell Stokes, who had 15 points and 10 rebounds to record his 18th double-double of the season.

McRae's thoughts: "We've got a game on Friday next week."

"I'm not on that committee, I don't know what they're thinking." said third-year Tennessee coach Cuonzo Martin.

Asked later if thought Tennessee was an NCAA tournament-worthy team, Martin replied, "Yes, but you've got to keep going."

At the current rate, it's hard to see any of the 12 other SEC teams not named Florida slowing down the Vols.

"I think we're at our peak right now," senior forward Jeronne Maymon said, "and I think if we can continue riding this wave, I think we'll be fine."

Antonio Barton, who's scored 51 points and hit 13 3-pointers in his last three games after scoring 16 and hitting four treys on Saturday, opened the game with a 3, and Tennessee never trailed for the fourth game in a row. The Vols opened the game on an 18-6 run, pushed the advantage to 24-9 and led 37-19 at half.

Missouri (21-10, 9-9) briefly trimmed its deficit to 14 points early in the second half, the Vols went on a 10-0 run to push the lead to 49-25 and put the game away.

The Tigers shot 57 percent against Tennessee in a 75-70 February win in Columbia, but the Vols held coach Frank Haith's team to a season-low in points. It was the Tigers' lowest-scoring game since 1997. In its last three games, the Vols are allowing just 45.7 points per game.

"It's definitely the defense, collectively and individually," Maymon said. "The defense we're playing is tremendous. Coach Martin comes in at halftime for the last couple of games and says, 'We didn't play a good -- we played a great half.' We just want to keep feeding off that."

Josh Richardson led the way defensively by shutting down Jabari Brown, the SEC's leading scorer at 20.1 points per game entering the game. Richardson held Auburn's Chris Denson's, the league's second-leading scorer, to three points on Wednesday. Brown scored eight points and shot 1-of-10, the only basket coming with 1:16 left.

"He's been defending at that level. He really has," Martin said. "Again, he's one of those guys taking a more serious approach. A fun-loving guy, but when you're a defensive stopper, there's a tone, there's a presence you have to have, you have to set. The guy that you're going against, he needs to see that. I think Josh has done a great job of accepting that challenge."

Seniors McRae, Maymon, Barton and D'Montre Edwards were honored before the game and substituted out of the game with 1:41 left.

"You just want to go out on a win, no matter how you've got to get it done," McRae said. "We would prefer to get it done how we did. That's the ideal way, and we did it."

Both McRae and Maymon were in the their first years with the program -- Maymon transferred in from Marquette in 2010 -- when Tennessee last made the NCAA tournament in 2011, and both stuck through the coaching transition from Bruce Pearl to Martin.

"I'm glad we could go out in style," Maymon said. "We went out there and we played a hell of a game. All the seniors, we played well, and it was just a good time. A great environment, the fans were loud, and it just felt right."

Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.

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