For Nebraska men's basketball to turn its once-promising season around, the Huskers needed to show something in Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday inside the Kohl Center, the home of Greg Gard's No. 18-ranked Badgers.

Some sort of change was needed for a spark amid a five-game losing streak, and there was another attempt at it before the game as head coach Fred Hoiberg announced on the Huskers Radio Network he'd be shaking up the starting lineup, inserting Sam Hoiberg at the 2 and Andrew Morgan the 5, while having Brice Williams play the point along with usual starters Juwan Gary at the 3 and Berke Buyuktuncel at the 4.

Hoping for a fast start with the new lineup, Nebraska didn't get it. Instead, it was an ugly, throw-your-hands-up kind of disaster for the Huskers, who went on to lose the game by 28 points, 83-55.

"Nobody is going to feel sorry for us right now. We can't have a pity party for ourselves," Hoiberg said on his postgame radio show. "...We just didn't have that energy, passion, toughness that you have to have to compete on the road in a Big Ten basketball game."

The defeat extends Nebraska's losing streak to six games and its record to 12-8 overall and 2-7 against league competition. Wisconsin's win improves the Badgers' record to 16-4, 6-3.

Nebraska's defense has struggled during this losing streak, and its rotations were again a step late and inefficient, and it led to Wisconsin making a whopping 17 3-pointers and getting torched by Omaha Central product John Toje, who scored 27 points.

"They got comfortable," Hoiberg said. "When you let a team get comfortable early, it's hard to shut them off."

Nebraska didn't make the winning plays needed to overcome the Badgers. The Huskers committed 12 turnovers — four in the first seven minutes — and the Badgers used those extra possessions to score 17 points. Nebraska only had 2 points off eight Wisconsin turnovers.

It was also another inefficient day for Nebraska in the paint. The Huskers finished 7-of-13 on layups and shot 34% from the field and 33% from 3 (10-of-30). For a team with such a razor-thin margin for error, those misses that close to the basket can't happen, but they continued to be missed Sunday.

"When you get a layup early in a game, man, I'm just telling you, as a shooter your threes are just so much easier to knock down when you're confident and 2-for-2 already," Hoiberg said. "...Those early turnovers are killing us right now."

Nebraska's leading scorer, Brice Williams, didn't have it Sunday, and that hurt the team. The 6-foot-7 wing ended the game with 11 points and went 4-of-12 from the field and 2-of-5 from 3. He only attempted two free throws and led the team with four turnovers.

And Connor Essegian, Nebraska's primary 3-point shooter off the bench who was making his return to Wisconsin, where he spent the first two seasons of his college career, finished with 8 points and was 2-of-7 from deep.

Gary, Buyuktuncel and Morgan finished with a combined 17 points on 7-of-26 shooting from the field and 2-of-10 from 3.

Wisconsin threw the first punch and forced a timeout from Hoiberg after going up 13-2 in the blink of an eye. Then at the first under-16 media timeout, the Badgers led 19-2 and were 5-of-6 from 3.

Instantly, Nebraska found itself in a deep hole.

"That's the problem, is the start. You can't come out and dig a 19-2 hole, it takes so much energy to try to get out of that thing," Hoiberg said. "But these early games, you stress it and you talk all the time until you're blue in the face about getting off to a fast start. The team that does that wins these, and that's exactly what happened."

Eventually, Wisconsin cooled off and Nebraska heated up. The Huskers scored 11 straight to cut their early deficit to 21-16. A Sam Hoiberg 3 put the Huskers within 24-21 with 5:48 remaining before half and stretched their run to 16-3. At that point, it looked like the Huskers were on to something.

Fool's gold, though.

The Badgers had more runs in them. They went on a whopping 16-2 run to push their lead back to 40-23. But thanks to a mini 5-0 run to end the half thanks to a corner 3 from Essegian and a layup from Williams, Nebraska did the unthinkable and went into halftime trailing by only 12, 40-28.

But in a second half where Nebraska absolutely needed to make something happen, nothing ever got started. Wisconsin outscored Nebraska 43-27 in the final 20 minutes. The Badgers shot 50% from the field and made eight 3s in the second half while Nebraska shot just 31% with five 3s and a 2-of-6 performance at the free-throw line, not that those were going to matter anyway.

As mentioned all last week, the road doesn't get much easier. There's really no such thing as a gimme game in the Big Ten these days. Nebraska hosts No. 17 Illinois (13-6, 5-4) on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m.

"We have to regroup quick. It's one of the best teams in the country coming in on Thursday, and if we don't get right it's going to be like this one was today. This team has to play consistent 40 minutes, we have such a thin margin with this group. We can't have lulls, we can't have stretches like we did to start the game and to finish the half."

After the game with Brad Underwood's Fighting Illini, Nebraska will hit its West Coast swing to play its second-consecutive ranked opponent, No. 15 Oregon (16-4, 5-4) in Eugene, on Sunday before traveling to Seattle to play struggling Washington (10-10, 1-8) on Wednesday, Feb. 5.

>> GAIN ALL-ACCESS with an annual or monthly subscription for less than $10/month

>> NEW SUBSCRIBERS get 30 days FREE

>> Sound off on the hot topics on our INSIDER'S BOARD

>> Follow us on Twitter (@NebraskaRivals)

>> Follow us on Instagram (@nebraskarivals)

>> Subscribe for FREE to the Inside Nebraska YouTube channel