Just days after taking a tough loss to Tennessee in the finals of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas, the Jayhawks returned home to friendly Allen Fieldhouse and looked like a team again.

The ball moved. Shots fell. Life returned to the Jayhawks’ legs. And the scoreboard reflected all of it, much to the delight of the home crowd.

“(After) losing a game, that next game is a game you have to come out and be effective and fix things you did (wrong) the last game and just show our confidence and how we’re going to come back,” KU junior Jalen Wilson said Monday night. “With a loss like that, you definitely regroup that night, talk about what you could’ve done better, but you can’t really hold onto losses too long. That’s the beauty of basketball.”

KU’s latest victory came without a couple of regulars, making the complete victory all the more impressive. Bobby Pettiford missed the game because of a hamstring injury he suffered early in the loss to Tennessee. And starter Kevin McCullar Jr. sat out with a minor groin pull.

Kansas coach Bill Self said after the game that he hoped to have Pettiford back by the Missouri game on Dec. 10, and that McCullar had a better chance to play on Thursday against Seton Hall.

“I think Thursday for him is more probable than for Bobby,” Self said. “But if he’s not ready, I’m not going to push it.”

Their absence opened the door for sophomore guard Joe Yesufu to make his first start as a Jayhawk — and just the ninth of his college career — and Yesufu responded with good energy and a lot of confidence on his way to 14 points in 30 minutes, his best scoring night at Kansas to date.

His effort appeared to serve as a calming force for the rest of the roster and led to five different Jayhawks scoring in double figures, including career-high totals from KJ Adams (10) and MJ Rice (19).

Jalen Wilson led the Jayhawks (7-1) with 22 points, five rebounds and six assists in 30 minutes. One game after misfiring on 12 of the 15 shots he attempted against Tennessee, Wilson shot 8-of-16 from the floor and 5-of-10 from behind the 3-point line.

Freshman Gradey Dick added 15 points and six rebounds, also in 30 minutes.

“He and J-Wil, I’m not going to get overly excited when they make shots,” Self said. “That’s what they do. They should get points because it’s designed for them.

The consistent production and extended playing time for Rice and Yesufu was by far the game’s biggest development.

“(That’s) everything that we need,” Wilson said of the production from Rice and Yesufu. “We always preach to them how aggressive we need them to be, and when they have the mindset to attack to score and make plays, it makes offense so much easier. You see when these guys are aggressive how successful our offense is.”

Rice made six of the nine shots he attempted, including two of four from 3-point range and five of six at the free throw line. While those numbers and his 19 points in 21:31 of playing time would be welcomed any night, they stood out even more considering he has practiced just a few times since the season began, missing time because of a back injury, COVID and kidney stones that sent him to the ER.

“Just coming in doing my job, really,” he said after the win. “Whether that’s bringing energy or playing defense, everything else will take care of itself. I know I missed some time, but it’s kind of like a build up; I had to get that rhythm back.”

Defensively, Self said he still wanted to see more both from Rice individually and the team as a whole. KU held the Tigers to 35.7% shooting overall and won the rebounding edge 35-25. But Texas Southern shot 52% in the second half and scored far too many points at the rim for Self’s liking.

“The area we’ve got to get better at is we’ve got to guard somebody,” Self said. “And there were way too many breakdowns on that end.”

That fact made the extra boost from KU’s reserves on offense all the more important.

Yesufu said he found out Monday at shoot-around that he would get the start. Self said the choice wasn’t that tough.

“It was either Joe or MJ,” he said. “Those were the only two guards that could sub in. So that wasn’t a hard decision.”

The Jayhawks opened the game with the kind of energy you’d expect from a team returning home after a tough loss out of town.

Wilson, Yesufu and Dick each buried a 3-pointer in the game’s opening minutes and Adams’ flush in traffic pushed Kansas out to an 11-2 lead early.

“I thought the ball moved decent,” Self said. “The right guys shot it and (it was) good to get MJ in there and Joe to have some productive minutes.”

Yesufu finished the night 4-of-7 from the floor, including a 3-of-5 clip from 3-point range and also also added three assists to go with one turnover.

“It’s a blessing,” Yesufu said of starting. “I know I’ve got to step up for the guys that are out. It’s a matter of me getting a rhythm and today I felt like I had a rhythm and the guys to back me, coach to back me, and they just told me to do what I do — score and defend.”

The Jayhawks held the Tigers to a 1-of-7 shooting start and limited the visitors to one-shot-and-out possessions in building the lead. Things stalled a bit from there, though, as Texas Southern guard Davon Barnes scored three consecutive layups, including a fancy reverse in traffic, to pull the Tigers within four (14-10).

Kansas quickly called timeout and then responded with a 7-0 run to grab a double-digit lead with 7:54 to play in the first half. Dick hit an elbow jumper, Wilson drained a corner 3 and Yesufu got his shoulders past his defender and scored an easy layup after looking like he was shot out of a cannon to get to the rim.

Things only got worse for Texas Southern (1-7) from there, as the Jayhawks’ 7-0 run quickly turned into a 19-4 spurt, pushing the Jayhawks out to a 33-14 lead late in the first half. Dick, who finished the first half 1-of-4 from 3-point range, hit three mid-range jumpers during the run and Wilson knocked in a pair from 3-point range.

The Jayhawks led 40-25 at the half, behind 14 from Wilson and a dozen from Dick.

Next up, the Jayhawks will return home on Thursday night to take on Seton Hall in the Big 12/Big East Battle. Tipoff is slated for 8 p.m. on ESPN.