It was beginning to feel like the Apocalypse for Tulsa fans.

After all, being down 19-3 at home to an embarrassingly bad team, perhaps as bad a conference team as Tulsa has ever played, may have made TU fans feel like the end of the world was coming. This couldn’t be happening.

Really, was Tulsa going to lose to Tulane?

Martins Igbanu and Curran Scott especially weren’t going to let that happen, as both scored 19 points to lead a Tulsa comeback in an otherwise uninspired 72-64 victory over Tulane in front of a lifeless crowd of 3,526 at the Reynolds Center on Thursday night.

Tulane (4-23, 0-15 AAC) is so bad that, not surprisingly, its start was just an aberration, as Tulsa regained the lead before halftime.

Although falling back behind at halftime by a point, and by three points early on in the second half, Tulsa wasn’t going to lose this game. Not to Tulane. Not to a team TU had smoked 80-57 at Tulane just two weeks ago.

Tulsa (17-12, 7-9) finally was playing with a full cast, as leading scorer DaQuan Jeffries was cleared to play earlier in the day after sitting out TU’s Saturday loss at Temple due to a concussion.

"When I heard Quan was back today, I was really happy,” said Igbanu. “I went to go see him and told him ‘welcome back.’

“Sometimes it’s really just more than basketball. Quan is a senior, these are his last two home games. I want to see him out there playing to the best of his ability. When I’m a senior, I don’t’want to be the guy who doesn’t play his last couple of games.”

Tulsa had also missed Lawson Korita due to a sickness in its previous game, a disastrous home loss to Wichita State. Even 6-foot-8 Simon Falokun is back from a foot injury, and played a minute.

“We didn’t know until this afternoon that he was going to play,” said TU coach Frank Haith of Jeffries. “He passed all of his (concussion protocol) tests. So he‘s got to get back into form."

Jeffries still wasn’t quite himself yet, scoring just four points, but his presence was felt.

And Haith mentioned how Scott was moving better after not having practiced the last few weeks due to a foot injury that requires him to wear a boot when not playing. Scott hit seven of 10 shots from the field, including four or seven on three-pointers.

Despite being constantly double-teamed, Igbanu made five of six field goal attempts and was 9 of 11 from the free-throw line. When he got the ball down low, Tulane's defense swarmed Igbanu - even more so after having success in the first half with 10 points in the half.

“Winning is hard,” Haith said. “After being down 19-3, I thought we played well the rest of the game.”

It may not have seemed like Tulsa played well after it trailed by 16 points eight minutes into the game, but from the time when Scott finally hit Tulsa’s first field goal with 11:41 left in the first half, until the end of the game, the Golden Hurricane outscored the Green Wave 69-45.

Tulsa's lead was as high as 64-52 with four minutes left, until Tulsa got caught sleepwalking when guard Caleb Daniels (18 points and nine rebounds to lead Tulane) nailed a three-pointer with 2:34 left to narrow the lead to five points at 64-59.

Was Tulsa really going to blow this game?

Tulsa got serious on the next possession, throwing the ball back down inside to Igbanu who muscled his way to a bucket while being fouled with 2:04 remaining. His ensuing free throw put the lead back up to eight, and the Green Wave provided little to no more resistance.

A factor in defending Tulane better after the Green Wave’s hot start was Tulsa switching from its usual match-up zone to man defense for much of the remainder of the game.

TU also won the battle of the boards, outrebounding Tulane 38-33. Point guard Elijah Joiner, who had nine points, led Tulsa in defensive rebounding with 8, including six in the second half. Jeriah Horne also had eight total rebounds, and Igbanu added seven.

Although the game was nothing to write home about, Tulsa did snap a two-game losing streak and got back on track for its final two games of the regular season. TU plays its home finale at 3 p.m. Sunday against East Carolina (10-17, 3-12). Tulsa’s last win before Thursday night was a 77-73 overtime victory at ECU on Feb. 17.