Call it a blowout. Say the Illini never got off the bus. Chase down the Kohl Center employee that screwed a lid over Illinois’ basket and widened Wisconsin’s in the first half.

Whatever overused hyperbole you care to use to describe the 74-51 whooping Wisconsin put on Illinois on Saturday, it’s probably an understatement.

It was a bag over the head game, a trend Illini fans hoped had ended with the final whistle of the football season. Not even world-renowned PGA golfer and Illinois alumnus Steve Stricker was in the Illini’s corner. The Madison, Wis., resident adorned a Wisconsin hat in the stands, a decision he probably didn’t regret after the Badgers started the game on a 14-3 run — an almost identical start to how the Illini began their game at the Kohl Center last season, which they lost 70-56.

“They controlled the game from the beginning to the end,” senior D.J. Richardson said. “And this is a hard building to win in. I think I’ve won here one time in my career, and they just took it to us from the beginning of the game.”

While the outcomes of the Illini’s trip to the Kohl Center this season and last were similar, the reality is this season’s Illini are radically different. Last year, the Illini were hurting when they travelled to Wisconsin, having lost 10 of their last 12. On Saturday, Richardson said the No. 12 Illini lost their competitive spirit because their locker room felt like the favorites. Go figure.

“Nothing went right. We played sluggish,” Richardson said. “We just need to get to a better start. We have to come in and play like we’re the underdogs.”

Illini head coach John Groce felt that message wasn’t properly delivered from his captains. Richardson, along with fellow captains Brandon Paul, Sam McLaurin and Tracy Abrams, felt the brunt of Groce’s post-game frustration for not having the team prepared to play from the tip, and Richardson echoed his coach’s disappointment in the team’s leaders.

After the Illini headed into the half down 39-19, McLaurin, Paul and Richardson were given the floor to motivate a second half push. Illinois came out flat once again, scoring just four points over the first four minutes of the second frame.

Abrams, perhaps the Illini’s most consistent player since the start of the Big Ten season, sat for long stretches of the first half because Groce said he didn’t like his intensity. Senior forward Mike Bruesewitz shut down Paul, who scored eight points and had his double-digit scoring streak snapped at 17. In every facet, Groce said, the Illini’s competitive consistency shattered on Saturday.

Richardson led the Illini with 16 points, but at the end of the game, the only player Groce could vouch for was sophomore Mike Shaw, who recorded two points and pulled down three rebounds in 19 minutes of action. He praised Shaw for his hustle after the sophomore played one minute against Minnesota and hadn’t played prior since Dec. 8 against Gonzaga. Groce said the rest of his team was not yet deserving of praise and left everything open to change in the post-game press conference.

“The one guy that I know that played his butt off in the 19 minutes he was in there was Mike Shaw,” Groce said. “Mike Shaw played like his head was held under water.”

Illinois finished the game with two assists and was outrebounded 43-24 after it retained 74 percent of defensive rebounds against the No. 1 rebounding team in the country, Minnesota, on Wednesday. Collectively, the Illini shot 26 percent from the field and 12 percent from behind the arc in the first half and didn’t score their first field goal until the 12:38 mark. A small second half push inspired a minute or two of positivity, but still, the Illini finished the game with a 35 percent shooting percentage from the field and shot just 14 percent from three, while Wisconsin shot 49 percent from the field and 44 percent from long distance. Those numbers don’t lie. The Illini got flat-out beat by Wisconsin, the Big Ten’s No. 1 scoring defense.

“At the end of the day, their competitive spirit was better than ours to start the game,” Groce said. “That is unacceptable. We have to figure it out pretty quick. We have another one on Thursday.”

The Illini are 1-3 in Big Ten play and haven’t proven they can win in a hostile environment on the road. After the Illini’s Jan. 2 road loss to Purdue was avenged by their Jan. 5 win over Ohio State, the Illini couldn’t amend Wednesday’s loss to No. 8 Minnesota on Saturday. Groce went easy on his team in practice this past week in an attempt to keep his team fresh after the physical loss. He promised that wouldn’t happen after this last one.

Ethan can be reached at [email protected] and @asofsky. Follow @di_illinhoops for additional men’s basketball coverage.