The last time Wisconsin faced the Northwestern Wildcats, life was much, much better.

The Badgers, showing their patented defensive toughness, held Northwestern to just 31 percent shooting and rolled to a 29-point victory at the Kohl Center to improve to 3-0 in the Big Ten.

Yup, less than a month ago, life for Bucky and his pals was pretty good.

Things are much different now for Wisconsin which hasn't won a game since beating the Wildcats on Jan. 7. After Saturday night's failed comeback bid in the rematch at Northwestern, Wisconsin sits 3-6 in the Big Ten (12-9 overall), mired ninth in the conference standings.

How in the world did this happen?

To be fair, a season like this was inevitable. Head coach Bo Ryan - who hasn't had a losing season since his 1984-1985 (his first as a head coach) UW-Platteville team went 9-17 - knew he had his work cut out heading into the year.

Gone from last year's conference championship squad were Brian Butch and Michael Flowers. Greg Stietsma was gone, too. Not only did those players account for a majority of the Badgers' offensive output, they were also key factors in allowing opponents just 54.4 points per game, the lowest total during Ryan's tenure as head coach.

It would be up to Marcus Landry, Trevon Hughes and a roster of promising underclassmen to fill the void and continue the winning tradition.

That just hasn't happened.

Wisconsin is getting points, as usual, and Landry and Hughes are leading the way with each averaging around 12 points heading into the Northwestern loss. But it's on the defensive end that the Badgers are struggling most.

Wisconsin went into the game allowing a little more than 61 points a game, an unheard of mark for a Bo Ryan defense, and had blown late-game leads three times during the five-game losing streak.

Two of those losses - against Iowa and Minnesota - were overtime affairs. Wisconsin had a chance to beat Purdue in Madison, but allowed three late three-pointers in losing to the Boilermakers for a third straight time.

Saturday night, Wisconsin again let a second period lead slip away. The Northwestern game was a perfect illustration of what has gone wrong in Badger land: in their first meeting, the Badgers held Northwestern to just 31 percent shooting but let them shoot 51 percent Saturday, including a 66 percent mark in the second half.

The Badgers haven't played awfully during the losing streak - UW's longest since the 1997-1998 season - they just haven't found a way to close teams out late. Chalk it up to inexperience, chalk it up to a down year ... but in the end, the blame lies squarely on the defense.

"That's not on coach or anyone else," UW guard Jason Bohannon told reporters after the game. "That's our fault. He's the one telling us the right things to do and we're not executing and getting it done. We have to get that done to win.

"We've had those six games right there. We've been in all of them."

With nine games on the schedule - including dates with No. 19 Illinois and No. 9 Michigan State - a lot of questions remain. Wisconsin doesn't have a lot of "quality victories" to its credit, which could hurt the resume as March Maddness approaches.

But time is running out to find answers. If the losing continues, the Badgers could very well find themselves on the outside looking in when NCAA Tournament selections are announced in a few weeks.