“That’s his first one?” UT point guard Antonio Barton asked in a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ tone before basketball practice at Pratt Pavillion on Monday afternoon.
The SEC announced UT senior wing Jordan McRae as its player of the week Monday, and despite a standout junior year when he finished as runner-up in the league’s player of the year voting, it is indeed the first time the 6-foot-6 scorer has received the honor.
“Wow, yes, that is surprising,” Barton said. “Seeing the stat-lines he was putting up, even last year, that was kind of unbelievable.”
McRae averaged 22.5 points in wins over Tennessee State and The Citadel last week to pick up the award. The Midway, Ga., native has led the Vols (3-1) in scoring during each game so far.
“It’s cool,” McRae said. “We’ve got some games coming up, so I’m not really too concerned about that.”
McRae drove a late Tennessee push that fell just short of the NCAA Tournament last season by scoring 34, 23, 27, 35 and 21 points over a five-game stretch in SEC play.
To no avail, he failed to garner an SEC Player of the Week honor. But if the award means anything to him, the slight-framed McRae kept it under wraps on Monday.
“I’m just trying to do whatever I can so our team can win games out there,” he said. “There have been times when we needed to score, and that’s my job out there.”
UT coach Cuonzo Martin offered that McRae’s current average of 21.5 points on the season could actually be higher.
“Jordan is playing well, and the thing about it is he could be averaging 25 or 26 points a game right now,” Martin said. “He’s very efficient, passing the ball, not forcing shots, going inside, outside, shooting the 3-point shot.
“And again, he’s gotten to the point where his 3-point shot is almost one of the best in the country as far as a catch and shoot guy.”
Bahamas preparation: The Vols will get an opportunity to test their shooting touch outside the country over the holiday weekend. Though Martin admitted his tropical wardrobe is limited, his team is focused on its trip to Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament that begins Thursday at 9:30 p.m. with a contest against UTEP.
If UT wins, it could face Xavier in the second round for the rematch of UT’s 67-63 season-opening loss. Either way, the Vols will play three games in three days against a field also consisting of Kansas, Villanova, USC, Iowa and Wake Forest.
“It’s going to be fun. Playing like this, you get to play back-to-back-to-back,” McRae said. “These kind of games, you really kind of find out what kind of team you’ve got.”
Though the rotation has scarcely exceeded 10 players in the early season, the Vols are confident a deep bench can alleviate some of the potential jet-lag and generally taxing nature of playing a lot of basketball in a short period of time.
“We’ve got depth everywhere,” McRae said. “There’s still guys who haven’t played that are very capable of playing, so I think that’s going to be to our advantage this week.”
Fifth-year senior forward Jeronne Maymon is averaging 25 minutes per contest in his first action since missing all of 2012-13 with knee issues. Martin said the UT staff is continuing to pay special attention to his conditioning and body language as he readjusts to full-time action.
Things will be no different this weekend.
“Part of his strength is just playing on both ends of the floor and to play hard and rebound,” Martin said. “If he gets exhausted, we’ve got to get him out of there and get him back in.”
