Despite an excellent first half, Illinois basketball completely fell flat in the second half in a 79-65 loss to No. 11 Michigan State on Saturday night. The Illini showcased the talent that makes them one of the most dangerous teams in college basketball, but they also showed why they have been a very frustrating and inconsistent team throughout the season.

There's no question that Brad Underwood's crew had its chances to win this game. The Illini took their final lead, 65-64, with 8:29 left in the game before Michigan State blanked them for the rest of the game, closing on a 15-0 run to help Tom Izzo break the all-time Big Ten wins record.

After the game, Underwood knew exactly what went wrong for Illinois during its second half collapse, via Jeremy Werner of 247 Sports.

“Against UCLA, it was trying not to lose. Tonight, it was not being tough enough,” Underwood said, per Werner. “We got to learn to head-ram better and get to the foul line more. When we do that, we're a really good basketball team.”

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Illinois started settling for a ton of jump shots late in the game instead of getting to the rim and trying to draw contact to get some of those easy points, and that played a big part in its struggles down the stretch. After the game, Underwood revealed one big regret in his rotation that could have helped alleviate that problem, via Werner.

“In hindsight, I wish I would've played Dravyn [Gibbs-Lawhorn] a little bit more,” Underwood said. “He's the one guy who can consistently put pressure on the rim. That's on me. I'll have a conversation with him about that.”

This Illinois basketball team has another tough test on the road against No. 16 Wisconsin on Tuesday night before it takes a break from conference play for arguably its biggest game of the year. Cooper Flagg and No. 3 Duke will meet the Illini at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night in a massive late-season non-conference tilt. Duke has been one of the hottest teams in the country for a few months now, so Underwood will have to get all of these issues fixed if he wants a chance to pull the big upset against the Blue Devils.