Penny Hardaway had to pick his favorite moment on the postgame radio show, and boy, did the Memphis basketball team make that hard Sunday afternoon.

How does one pick a single moment from the 112-86 Tigers win at Wichita State that was — literally — the kind of performance that comes along once every 70 years?

Memphis hadn’t scored this many points since 1994. It hadn’t scored this many points on the road since 1955. It hasn’t had this good of a record (15-2) through 17 games since the 2007-08 team that went all the way to the national championship game.

So what would he choose?

Maybe Jaykwon Walton’s hot shooting to start the game, right after the Wichita State transfer got booed by his old fans? Or when Malcolm Dandridge dunked all over a Wichita State defender early.

Was it one of the school-record 19 3-pointers? Perhaps the two shots from the Shockers’ logo by point guard Jahvon Quinerly.?

Or those emphatic putback jams from Nae’Qwan Tomlin and Carl Cherenfant to punctuate an explosion that served as an exhilarating reminder of what these Tigers might be capable of accomplishing.

In their 10th straight win, the Tigers shot 64.7% from the field, 63.3% from 3-point range and missed three shots in a row just once all game. They had 49 points before halftime and 63 points after it. They scored on 14 of their first 15 possessions of the second half to completely blow open what had been a close game. They became the first team to break 100 points on Wichita State in nearly 30 years, and they did it with 6:28 to go in regulation. They had six players finish in double figures in scoring.

They did all of this with the knowledge that a top-10 ranking in the national polls could await them Monday, because nine of the teams ahead last week lost at least once since then.

“That's awesome to watch,” Hardaway said. “That’s how I envisioned this team, with all the weapons that we have.”

It sure beats the past five games, when Memphis took its fans on increasingly nerve-wracking adventures against inferior competition but never did suffer a loss. There’s likely more of that on the horizon, just because of the nature of conference play and the target the Tigers have become within the league due to their improving national profile. But Sunday was a welcome reminder of why this group has more March Madness potential than any since John Calipari was here.

First it was Walton. Then it was Quinerly, with 23 points and 11 assists. Dandridge controlled the paint in the first half, Nick Jourdain took over in the second, and Tomlin was steady throughout.

Then David Jones, after a quiet first 20 minutes, burst out of the locker room to score 15 points in a span of 3 minutes, 30 seconds. The Memphis defense still isn’t what it could be under Hardaway, but it got better after halftime and Wichita State never stood a chance after the initial second-half barrage.

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The Tigers don’t need to be Hardaway’s best defensive team. They might need to be merely adequate if the past two games are an indication the offensive firepower on this roster is coalescing. By the time it was over, ESPN’s Seth Greenberg was cooing about how the Tigers could be an Elite Eight or Final Four team.

All of the ingredients for that sort of run showed up Sunday.

“When we do what we did today, playing freely and getting into the paint and shooting those shots, then it can be like that,” Hardaway said. “If it’s going to be like this the rest of the year, it’s going to be a fun, fun, fun year.”

As for his favorite moment, Hardaway didn’t necessarily pick one.

He picked all of the buckets Jones had to kick-start an eruption that let everyone’s imaginations run wild once more.

"Incredible," Hardaway said. "That was incredible."

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Penny Hardaway: Memphis basketball win at Wichita State was 'awesome'