In the Nebraska men's basketball locker room, there used to be a board showing the entire Big Ten Conference standings — all 18 teams.

Key words there being: "used to."

But during a stretch of six straight losses that have turned a once-promising season into one where some fans are turning the page to baseball season, that board now shows only two teams: Nebraska and No. 18 Illinois.

Head coach Fred Hoiberg knows the cliche is as old as time, but it simply fits where his struggling Husker team (12-8 overall, 2-7 in Big Ten) is at right now. In order to snap out of this dreaded streak, it must be one game at a time.

"These games have to be our Super Bowl for the rest of the year. One game at a time if we want to get out of this," Hoiberg said Wednesday during a press conference ahead of Thursday's 7:30 p.m. game against Brad Underwood's Fighting Illini (14-6, 6-4) inside Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Thursday's game will be shown on FS1 with Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe on the call.

Wednesday provided chances for both Hoiberg and senior forward Andrew Morgan to talk openly about where the team is at and how it plans to fix things with one of the best teams in the Big Ten coming to Lincoln.

"We've had a lot of very long, real discussions with our group these last couple days, and I hope it carries over," Hoiberg said. "We can't have a here-we-go-again mentality. And I've seen that when the ball isn't going in the basket, when teams are hitting shots — whatever they are, semi-contested, contested. Heads drop, and we just are not worth a damn when that happens."

Many of those hard-truth discussions happened in the film room and practice court this week, and there was plenty to talk about after the 28-point loss at Wisconsin on Sunday.

Hoiberg said he showed the team the differences in bench energy from earlier in the season, when the Huskers were 12-2 and playing good ball, and this recent three-week stretch. There's been a difference.

Hoiberg mentioned walk-on guard Jeff Grace, who doesn't get the court time others do but is always the one rooting on his teammates and providing them energy and confidence from the bench. Hoiberg wants to see that from everyone — bench guys and those in the rotation.

"If everybody could have Jeff Grace's spirit, man, it would make our jobs a lot easier," Hoiberg said.

The goal during this losing streak has been returning to how the team was playing early in the season, Morgan said. The talks and clips Hoiberg showed seemed to make an impact, Morgan thinks.

"We were playing with a lot more joy. It felt like, in the beginning of the year when things were going good, we treated them like they were going amazing," Morgan said. "And then when things start going bad, we kind of just drifted off."

That once-upon-a-time defense-first identity Nebraska had has obviously left, Hoiberg said. That's clear to all who've been paying attention.

"We've lost our identity. Our identity was a gritty, dirty, ugly, just grind-it-out type of team," Hoiberg said. "And right now, we're not getting those stops, and it affects the ball going the other way."

The team meetings this week have been filled with honest moments from both players and coaches. Many of the words came from the heart. Not much sugarcoating going on.

Morgan thinks it's what needed to happen in order to spark change.

"Everybody had to get their opinions out and what they really felt was wrong or what needed to be fixed, and I think it helped us a lot," Morgan said. "A lot of guys had very informative stuff that we didn't even know was on their mind, which really helped us understand why they were being the way they were."

The hope is that the openness and honesty displayed from everyone will help make a positive impact on the court.

"Once we got those out, I mean, everybody kind of understands where everybody's coming from now, and we see what we can do better as a team, feeling like we can put this train back on the tracks," Morgan said.

The start of change must begin in practice, Morgan said. That's where improvement starts. The transfer from North Dakota State said the team has done better with what Hoiberg talked about with Grace — positive energy and having the back of your teammate all the time, not just in spurts.

"Do all the little things that really helps guys get their confidence back and really feel like guys are pulling for them," Morgan said. "...When those guys are pulling for you, it gives you confidence back again that you're doing the right stuff. So we've kind of just started doing that more in practice, just becoming a really loud, joyful team in practice."

Hoiberg has played a lot of basketball himself and been on good teams and bad. He knows the body language from the players on the court hasn't been good during this stretch, and that opponents see it and take advantage.

Through his experiences as a player, there's really only one way to overcome that confidence issue — get a win.

"We got to get a win. We have to get a win to get our guys some confidence and to get out of that mentality of, here we go again," Hoiberg said.

Hoiberg didn't even want to say this next part out loud because of how it will be negatively taken on the outside, but the coach said it anyway — the team plays differently at practice than in games.

The trick, the coach said, is finding the right buttons to push on game day.

"I hate even saying this because I know it doesn't matter, but in practice we're pretty damn good. But when the lights turn on and when the adversity hits, for whatever reason, we lose that," Hoiberg said. "We kind of get that blank look on our face. We got to get out of that. If we have any chance of winning, any chance of making a run, we got to get out of that mentality."

Recent history says a season turnaround is still possible, even if things look bleak. Hoiberg remembers when Emmanuel Bandoumel and Juwan Gary went down with season-ending injuries in January two seasons ago. That team found itself at 3-9 in the Big Ten at one point. But the Huskers adjusted without two of their best players and finished 6-2 with the best record of any Big Ten team in February.

"But we fought, man. We fought every day so we can turn that thing around," Hoiberg said. "But I'm sick of saying it — it's like beating a dead horse in that room saying, 'alright, there's time, there are chances,' but we're running out of them. We're running out of time. So we got to get this thing going."

Illinois comes to Lincoln looking to right the ship a bit itself. After a five-game winning streak from December 22 to January 8, Illinois has gone 2-3 in its most recent five.

It's a stretch that saw the Fighting Illini lose at home to both USC (82-72) and a red-hot Maryland crew by 21 points (91-70). While Nebraska was getting beat at Wisconsin on Sunday, Illinois was picking up a win over Northwestern (83-74).

Illinois has shown it's tough and comfortable away from Champaign. The Illini picked up a 32-point win at No. 16 Oregon and a 25-point win at Indiana.

The Illini have the top scoring offense in Big Ten games at 83 points per game. The engine to the attack is point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, a 6-6, 205-pound true freshman from Lithuania who's stuffing the stat sheet to the tune of 15.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 37.5% on an average of 4.9 3-point attempts.

Remember the talk about NBA lottery picks with Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper when Rutgers came to town? Jakucionis is right in that conversation, too. The kid can ball.

"Jakucionis is unbelievably impressive at the point guard position for his age, assist-to-turnover ratio. He's a wizard in ball screens," Hoiberg said. "So we're going to have to do a good job trying to not only contest shots, but contest passes to buy rotations time, and close out with urgency."

While Illinois is strong in the backcourt, it also has a frontcourt that includes a 7-foot-1 rim-running floor spacer from Croatia in Tomislav Ivisic, who's averaging 13 points, 8.5 boards and two assists. He's shooting 35.4% on 4.4 3-point attempts.

Good news for the Huskers, though: Ivisic will miss his third-straight game with an illness.

Physicality and a hard crashing style where all five players hit the paint to rebound is Illinois' style. The Illini are averaging a Big Ten-best 43.9 rebounds per game in league play and hauled down 21 offensive rebounds against Northwestern and 15 against Michigan State.

Illinois has the top rebounding differential in the country at plus-11. Five players are averaging more than five boards per game, including Ivisic, Jakucionis, Morez Johnson Jr. (6.6), Kylan Boswell (5.5) and Tre White (5.4)

"They crash everybody, they don't send anybody back. They all five crash," Hoiberg said. "And if we don't make contact and play physical, it's gonna be a long day."

Said Morgan: "That's something we really have emphasized this week, is that we need to box out, finish the possession, get the rebound, then we can get out and run. But don't try and get out and run when we haven't secured the rebound yet."

Rollie Worster has been a bright spot lately. While the 6-5, 210-pound point guard has seen his role shift depending on his matchup each game, he's been a strong defender who's making an impact in other ways outside of scoring.

Against Rutgers, Worster was on triple-double watch with 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Against USC, he had six assists and six boards. At Wisconsin, the Utah transfer came off the bench for seven points, four assists and three rebounds.

In Madison, Worster seemed to be playing just as hard and physical defensively as the Badgers were while understanding his offensive limitations and being a facilitator.

"I've been really impressed with the mentality that he's brought and he's he handled the change in role like a champion," Hoiberg said.

Worster was on the court when Nebraska went on that big run that got it back in the game Sunday at Wisconsin. Then he had to leave with two fouls, leaving Hoiberg to wonder how things would've gone if Worster didn't pick up that second foul.

"I thought he really was a catalyst in that run, getting us open shots," Hoiberg said. "He found Connor (Essegian) in transition a couple times, got downhill into the paint, hit a couple shots, he guarded. So Rollie, I've been really proud of him, how he's played."

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