Elite defense was key for Tennessee in its Battle 4 Atlantis championship run in The Bahamas last week.

For the No. 13 Vols, the effort that allowed them to sweep Butler, USC and Kansas in consecutive games carried over into another non-conference matchup with a little less significance on Wednesday night.

Tennessee struggled to hit shots at times, but its defense was dominant in a 76-40 win over McNeese State at Thompson-Boling Arena. The victory extended the Vols' (6-1) win streak to five games and their home winning streak to 20 games.

"I think we talk a lot about how you can effect a game," Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. "There's some nights you can't make a shot. That's just the way it is and some teams I've had if they didn't make the shot, they struggled...You should never have an off night defensively. Ever. That's just mental toughness...I think it's critical how you think from the time we start our prep and after we have our walk through...When you're around these guys so much, you almost have a really good feel about when they've got it.

"We talked a lot about it, that we're going to be the team coming into this game that we want to be."

On the defensive end of the floor, Tennessee limited the Cowboys (2-6) to just 11.8% shooting from the field and 28.6% from 3-point range. The Vols had a hand in 24 McNeese State turnovers and forced three shot-clock violations, never allowing the Cowboys’ offense to get into it despite Tennessee's own first half shooting woes.

Jonas Aidoo was a commanding presence in the paint. The 6-foot-11 sophomore forward had five blocks and six rebounds.

"(I'm playing) 100% more confident," Aidoo said. "Just moving on the court, defensively, offensively, I just feel great being out there with my team. I just feel like we're all clicking on the same page."

On offense, Santiago Vescovi paced Tennessee in scoring with 16 points and hit a game-high five 3-pointers. Freshman Julian Phillips continued to make an early impact with with12 points. Tyreke Key finished with 10.

Tennessee showed more balance in the second half, turning its suffocating defense into points as the Vols scored 14 of its total 30 points off turnovers in the final 20 minutes. Vescovi and Key heated up from beyond the arc, too — hitting a combined four shots. The Vols shot more than 47% from deep in the period.

The most electrifying moment in an otherwise uneventful rout happened with just over 13 minutes to go when a steal led to a Olivier Nkamhoua transition dunk that swelled the Tennessee lead to 48-22 and brought the home crowd to its feet.

"We wanted to play aggressive, we wanted to play tempo, we wanted to play quicker," Barnes said. "(McNeese State) did exactly what we've talked about for two days. They do a great job of it-their zone. They're very active, they know how to make adjustments...In the first half, you make a couple of 3-pointers, you hit your free throws and you have a kind of different feel to the game. One thing that we did-with the fact that we weren't very good on offense in the first half-we didn't let our offense effect our defense.

"I thought our defensive effort was good throughout for the most part. Second half, we started playing the pace that we talked about from the beginning."

Tennessee continues its three-game home slate against Alcorn State on Sunday at 6 p.m. on SEC Network+.

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