MADISON - It took a little longer for Wisconsin to run out of steam in the second half than it did against Maryland this past Wednesday.

Ultimately, though, the all-too-familiar struggles on the defensive end, combined with an offensive rut, turned into a hole too large to climb out of in what became the team's sixth loss in seven games.

Here are a handful of takeaways from Wisconsin's 61-51 loss to Illinois on Saturday at the Kohl Center.

Returning home after playing four of the past six games on the road and needing a win badly, the Kohl Center crowd answered the bell. The 17,071 in attendance were eager to provide an atmosphere to match up with many others in the Big Ten. Outside of a five minute burst in the second half, though, Wisconsin did not provide much of a reason to erupt.

To open the scoring, Max Klesmit, who returned after he missed the last two games, leaked out and hit a three a transition at the 18:41 mark. From there, the Badgers wouldn't score again until Carter Gilmore got a layup to go with 12:57 to go in the first half. A total of five minutes and 44 seconds between baskets.

"The ball wasn't really going in in the first half," Tyler Wahl said after the game. "At the beginning I felt like we were getting some decent looks and the ball just wasn't falling."

To close the half, the Badgers ran into similar struggles to get a basket to drop. Over the last four minutes and 37 seconds, the team was scoreless and finished 1-of-12 over that stretch. Overall in the first half, UW shot 6-of-33 from the field (18.2%) and 3-14 from three (21.4%).

Part of the issue was uncharacteristic struggles from the team's top two shooters.

Chucky Hepburn was held scoreless in the first half on 0-for-5 shooting from the field before he scored 15 in the second half. Freshman Connor Essegian was limited to three points, all of which came from the free throw line.

Part of what played into the inability to get anything going on the offensive was some early foul trouble from Wahl. Just under five minutes into the game, the senior forward picked up a pair of cheap fouls and would have to sit and watch his team struggle to get anything going on the offensive end.

The opening five minutes of the game would be the lone action he saw in the first half. In all, Wahl played a total of 19 minutes and 17 seconds. That's the fewest he's logged this season other than against Minnesota when he had to exit early due to an ankle injury.

"That's on me," Wahl said. "I have to be better, for sure. That's the bottom line, I just have to be better."

Returning to the game in the second half, Wahl scored Wisconsin's first seven points in the half before he picked up his third and fourth fouls in the same possession with 15 minutes to go in the game.

A 14-5 run from Wisconsin knotted things up at 37 with just under 10 minutes to go before Steven Crowl picked up his fourth foul. Head coach Greg Gard elected to swap the two bigs and bring Wahl in for Crowl.

The defensive lapses without the 7-footer were too much to overcome and allowed Illinois to rattle off a 22-4 run to put the game away.

"Second half, I thought we guarded well until that stretch from about the 10-minute mark to the four-minute mark when they went on a run. It makes it really hard when you have your better players in foul trouble for an extended period of time," Gard said. "I felt when Steve got his fourth that really changed the tone of the game.

"We've got to put ourselves in positions better where you're saying not sitting 25 minutes in the first half - Tyler specifically - and then turn around and get two fouls in the first five minutes of the second half. No team can put your better players on the bench like that."

When Wisconsin found itself sitting at 13-2 following a win over Minnesota, the backbone for many of the wins wasn't anything new for the program. Included in its resume was a 43-42 victory over Dayton, a 64-59 win over USC and a 60-50 win over Stanford, among others.

It didn't last the full 40 minutes, but for the first and for parts of the second half, the Badgers looked like the team that had held teams under 65 points and made it difficult to get anything going offensively.

"We had done a lot of good things defensively, which was good to see because we had not been good defensively the last game and a half or so," Gard said of the effort. "So to get that back was a positive sign. Defensively I was glad to see we got some of our toughness back and our grit."

That effort lagged when Crowl was left helpless on the bench after he picked up his fourth foul. A 10-0 run turned what was tie game into a 10-point deficit for Wisconsin that eventually ballooned into a 17-point lead.

The issues weren't necessarily schematic lapses. Rather, the Badgers simply got beat off the dribble on multiple occasions and couldn't recover.

"I think the No. 1 thing is you have to get back to being who you are and that was a conversation we had with these guys and we've talked about where have we strayed from who we are," Gard said when asked how the group gets out of the funk.

"You can't fix everything but the No. 1 thing by and large was what we were not doing defensively and that's been the emphasis... That has to be a part of who we are with this team and that has to be consistent. It has to be 40 minutes, it can't be 32."

Three games after getting Wahl back from injury, Wisconsin welcomed back starter Max Klesmit. A blow to the head against Penn State left him sidelined for the second half of that contest and the past two games.

Often drawing comparisons to former Wisconsin guard Brad Davison, Klesmit brought much of the familiar toughness and little things that Wisconsin lacked recently. In his return, he tallied 12 points, eight rebounds, two steals and drew a pair of charges. The junior also possesses an intangible spark that spreads to the rest of the guys.

"That's how he is," Gard said of Klesmit's energy. "That was him everyday in practice. We're doing defensive things and he's taking charges. That's what we miss with him out and it's good to have him back because he brought that toughness to us today. We have to continue to build off the good things that happened today and correct the things that didn't go well."

Wahl didn't put it lightly when speaking on the defensive effort in the latter parts of the second half. After seeing a few shots go in, he felt the group "quit playing defense," which highlighted a larger issue of being unable to end scoring runs from an opposing team.

"We relied on our defense in the first half," Wahl said. "That's how Wisconsin has always played. When the ball isn't going in, we have to rely on our defense. In the second half, we kind of got away from that and we saw the ball go in a few times and we just quit playing defense."

Every offensive metric improved for Illinois from the first half to the second half. After shooting 33.3 percent from the floor in the first half, the Illini bumped that number up to 54.2 percent and shot 40.0 percent from three. Brad Underwood's bunch were scoring at a rate of just .625 points per possession before finding a groove and increasing that number to 1.367 points per possession in the second half.

"I feel like in the beginning of the year we were doing a pretty good job of limiting the runs other teams had and we'd respond well," Wahl added.

"Right now we just haven't been able to get a stop on defense. They go on their runs and then we call timeout and nothing really happens or just continue to do whatever they want to do."

For what the conference lacks in star power and premier teams it makes up in with depth from top to bottom. Through a brutal stretch, Wisconsin hasn't had a "get right" game on the schedule, and there won't be one anytime soon with a road tilt with Ohio State up next. The Buckeyes are in a rut of their own with losses in six of seven as well but still pose a tough challenge when they have it rolling.

"That's just the Big Ten," Wahl said. "You're going to go through some spurts where things aren't going your way but it's how you respond. I know this team is really good and we all rely on each other and we have to pick each other up and show up at practice and work hard."

Now in his fourth season part of the rotation at Wisconsin, Wahl has seen a thing or two and been through rough patches like the one the team is currently going through. Coming off three games in six days, the Badgers will have four days off before playing Ohio State on Thursday.

"These off days will be nice and kind of get a mental break," Wahl added. "Not using that as an excuse but we just have to show up to practice, know what we have to work on and do it and translate that to the game."

19:17 - Tyler Wahl's playing time. His lowest of the season other the game against Minnesota in which he got injured.

18.2 - Wisconsin's shooting percentage in the first half.

16 - Points scored in the first half by Wisconsin. The lowest output in any half by a Big Ten team.

26 - Matthew Mayer led Illinois with 26 points on 9-of-19 shooting. Mayer led Baylor with 17 in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Wisconsin in 2021.

9:49 - Time left in the game when Steven Crowl picked up his fourth foul. Illinois would put the game away with a 22-4 run with the game tied at 37.

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