MADISON, Wis. -- Having to answer for yet another game that fell by the wayside in the last minutes, head coach Greg Gard was well on his way to rattling off the same answer he's given in past close defeats: putting together enough of the little things has to be fixed.

"We’ve got to clean up the four points we gave up (off turnovers). It’s the little things," Gard said after the game. "One thing here, one thing there, and as they add up makes the difference. Because we’ve been in so many of these games I don’t think it’s any one thing. It’s continue to be as consistent as we can and continue to clean up some of the things that put us in trouble that make it harder to get out of a hole or starts the digging a hole."

That kind of language when assessing a game isn't anything new from Gard. Often opting to stray away from harping on the final possessions of a game or whether or not good looks drop, another crushing defeat on Thursday night to Purdue continued a theme this year for the Badgers.

"We have to start being better at making plays down the stretch," Gard went on. "We got the ball where we needed it to and sometimes you just have to have a shot go in. I was hoping we would bank on one of those threes or something. We need to break the ice, so to speak, and like I said I would like to see this group get rewarded because of how they embraced and attacked trying to be a good team.

"Whatever we are, we’re a pretty good 16-13 team. I think we’re a little bit better than our record shows but we haven’t gotten the results, so apparently we’re not. You are who your record say you are."

Going blow for blow with the Boilermakers, who had clinched an outright Big Ten title in the middle of the first half when Illinois took care of Michigan, Wisconsin put itself in a position to earn a signature win.

"I don’t think there’s any doubt," Gard said when asked if the team has improved from humbling losses to Indiana and Maryland in January. "We’ve gotten better. We’ve played better basketball. Probably the second half at Nebraska is one that is unacceptable, but I thought we played really well in the second half on Sunday. I’ll go through the tape and I’ll see what I think about tonight, but when you’re right here with the league’s champion toe-to-toe, that tells me we’re doing a lot of good things.

"If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be with 20 seconds and a shot to take the lead."

Calling a timeout with 36 seconds left to play, Gard drew up a play for Max Klesmit, who had hit big shot after big shot on his way to 19 points, to get downhill. Fighting through contact, his layup went off back iron. And from there, Wisconsin needed a miracle.

A few free throws from both teams fell through before UW ultimately fell to 16-13 and 8-11 in conference play. The Badgers now find themselves sitting in 12th place with a game to go and are currently slotted to open up the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday. With that, they would be forced to win five games in five days to win the conference tournament.

Sitting at the podium in front of local reporters, the trio of Klesmit, Tyler Wahl and Chucky Hepburn had a blank stare and were short in their responses. The group was left wondering once again what they had to do to get over the hump. The same thought that came across their mind just four days earlier in a stunning defeat to Michigan in overtime.

"It’s pretty frustrating because we’ve been playing well enough to win and we just haven’t been able to get it done," Wahl, who was honored before the game, said.

"They’ve always come back. Sunday hurt, too. It should hurt, it should sting," Gard later said. "They know that they did a lot of good things and just were right there. And obviously on senior day and all that, you want to play well. They’re competitive and they want to win.

"I can’t ask for any more in terms of what they’re doing and how hard they’re playing but as we’ve known all year, our margin for error is minimal. We have to continue to help them find ways to get over the top."

Six turnovers in the first half turned into nine points for Purdue and a few possessions deep into the shot clock. In all, though, Wisconsin turned it over just eight times, hit six more threes than Purdue, scored at a rate of 1.017 points per possession, forced 12 turnovers and were never in any extraordinary foul trouble. That, more often than not, ends in a win.

"It’s hard because I always looked at it when it was our team talking to them like if we weren’t good enough, then why do we keep being in these games? So right away you have to instill that in your team that we are good enough and if we keep fighting," Matt Painter, who's in his 18th season coaching at Purdue, said.

"You got to fight to get in position and they fought to get in position tonight. We’re one possession better, does it make us better? No, not really. It makes us one possession better, but we’ve won a lot of these this year where now when you lose a lot these, there is a lot of soul searching. I’ve talked to them as a coach that I have to be one possession better and everyone collectively has to be one possession better. Just keep working and being positive and helping each other out because it’s the only way to give yourself a chance.

"I just believe they have to stay positive. They have the pieces, they can do it. I hope they don’t beat Purdue but that’s the only way to go about it. You just try to bring them in as much as possible and make sure no one is getting at each other and everyone is staying positive.

"When you get in those ruts like that it’s tough, but you’re two wins from feeling good about yourself and now you can get it going and win a tournament and get in the NCAA tournament."

By no means has Wisconsin played perfect basketball, but the semblance of solid play has been there going back to the loss at home to Northwestern on Feb. 5. With the exception of the meltdown on the road at Nebraska, the improvement has been there.

After going 2-6 in the month of January, any consolation the team can find in the form of a moral victory is long gone. The calendar has flipped to March and unfortunately for Wisconsin, it kicked off in much the same manner many contests in February went: a solid effort that wasn't matched with the desired result.

"My biggest thing is I’d like to see this group get rewarded because they are doing so many things right and they’ve given us every single thing they have," Gard said. "Obviously Purdue has a terrific team this year but they just continue to battle and have followed our plan really well. It’s obviously not perfect, but no team is, and I’d just like to see them get rewarded and be able to get over the hump here."

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