ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Playing a team picked to finish last in the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Kansas Jayhawks didn’t exactly have the flying start that they had hoped for on Sunday afternoon.

They missed shots. They made bad passes. They didn’t grab rebounds. And their leading scorer Danielle McCray started just one of seven from the field.

The results weren’t positive — an 18-10 deficit to Saint Louis University midway through the first half.

“We were emotionally hungover or something,” coach Bonnie Henrickson said. “We weren’t very good early.”

But the Jayhawks soon woke up, storming back to take a 33-31 lead at the half, eventually beating the Billikens 75-56 at the Chaifetz Arena.

Playing without 6-foot-5 sophomore center Krysten Boogaard, who will miss two weeks with a stress reaction in her femur, the Jayhawks had just one offensive rebound in the first half and were out-rebounded 23-13 by the smaller Billikens in the opening 20 minutes.

“We stood around on the defensive end and just let balls hit the floor,” Henrickson said. “They pursued them. I thought they out-hustled us in the first half.”

The Jayhawks battled back to tie the game at 31 late in the half before LaChelda Jacobs, one of four Jayhawk starters in double figures, hit a pull-up jumper with six seconds left to put Kansas up by two points at the break.

Back-to-back three-pointers by McCray and Nicollette Smith at the start of the second half put the Jayhawks up 39-31 and they never looked back from there. The Jayhawks unleashed a 16-4 run to start the final 20 minutes and upped their lead to 49-35 midway through the half to put the game away.

“We didn’t come out as aggressive as we did in the second half,” McCray said. “We were kind of just laid-back. Road games are different and we just didn’t come out with the same energy as we have.”

McCray led all scorers with 27 points and 12 rebounds in 32 minutes of action. She was seven of 18 from the field and hit 11 of her 12 attempts from the free throw line. She also had four steals, a block, two assists and two three-pointers.

The junior is second in the Big 12 in points per game with 23.7 and is seventh in rebounding at 8.7 boards per game.

“Danielle was a monster,” Henrickson said. “She was all over the glass. I thought, from tip to horn, she was solid. She made good decisions, guarded, rebounded like crazy, got to the free-throw line.”

Sade Morris had 14 points, Porscha Weddington had 12 and Jacobs added 10 for the Jayhawks. The team has had at least three players score in double figures in all three games this season and ranks third in the Big 12 in scoring offense at 85.7 points per game.

While McCray is the unquestioned team leader, Henrickson said the emergence of Morris, Weddington and Jacobs would make the Jayhawks much more dangerous as the season rolls on.

“The best and most fun teams I’ve had have had three or four people where it could be anybody’s night,” Henrickson said. “Now I’ve never had anyone that was going to go for 40 a night so I’ve never played like that, but it’s a lot easier to beat someone when you’ve got more than one option.”

The Jayhawks upped the lead to 56-39 on a McCray three-point play with 11:48 to go in the game, but a quick 13-3 run by the Billikens cut the lead to just nine at 61-52 with six minutes left to play.

But Kansas didn’t flinch, ending the game on a 16-4 run that had the Jayhawks fans in attendance singing the Rock Chalk Chant with less than a minute remaining.

“We kept fighting,” Weddington said. “I thought that we had heart and we fought until the end.”

The Jayhawks will take a break from practice to dine at Henrickson’s home on Thanksgiving before preparing to host New Orleans on Sunday afternoon. They will look to go 4-0 for the first time since the 2005-2006 season.

— — Adam Mowder