Tate: Climb back to the top a slow one

Wisconsin's Ethan Happ, left, and Illinois' Mark Alstork, center, and Matic Vesel scramble for a loose ball during the Illini's 75-50 loss at Wisconsin on Friday night.With Tom Izzo's marauding Michigan State Spartans on the horizon Monday, Brad Underwood faces a Humpty Dumpty task that will take considerably more than "all the king's horses and all the king's men."

What has been a competitive, though failed, Illini basketball operation throughout the previous month and a half ran off the rails Friday. It splintered and unraveled against Wisconsin's patient dissecting.

Underwood cited a "lack of energy." My perspective is different. What I saw were Wisconsin players drawing inspiration from a…