MADISON, Wis. — The UCLA men’s basketball team couldn’t dig itself out of another first-half hole.

Nolan Winter and Nick Boyd combined for 23 first-half points, and Wisconsin opened a 20-point lead midway through the first half on its way to handing UCLA an 80-72 defeat on Tuesday night.

Winter scored 12 points, and Boyd added 11 to help Wisconsin build a 45-31 halftime lead. The Badgers shot 54% overall in the first half, including an 8-for-16 showing from behind the arc.

In the second half, Winter’s two free throws stretched the Badgers’ lead to 56-39. UCLA answered with a 17-7 run, capped by a Trent Perry 3-pointer to cut its deficit to 63-56 with 8:41 left, but the Bruins didn’t get any closer. Perry hit two free throws to pull the Bruins within 74-65 with 2:02 left.

“We have still not learned how to give ourselves a chance in a big game like this on the road,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin told reporters, after watching his team fall behind by 20 for the second time in four days.

“You can’t win (spotting home teams big leads),” Cronin said. “Like, it’s literally like saying, ‘All right, Wisconsin’s up 20. Now let’s tip it off and try to beat them.’”

Eric Dailey Jr. scored 18 points on 9-of-17 shooting to lead UCLA (10-5 overall, 2-2 Big Ten), which has lost back-to-back games for the first time this season. Tyler Bilodeau scored 16 points despite foul trouble, and Perry added 15, playing the second half with a bandage on his chin after taking a hard fall while diving for a loose ball in the first half.

The Bruins, who were playing without guard Skyy Clark (hamstring injury), shot 46% from the field and outscored Wisconsin 36-26 in the paint but missed 16 of their 17 3-point shots and went 15 for 23 at the free-throw line.

Boyd finished with 20 points and Winter scored 18, and the pair each grabbed eight of the Badgers’ 32 rebounds. John Blackwell added 17 points, and Andrew Rohde chipped in with 12 for Wisconsin (10-5, 2-2), which bounced back from an 89-73 loss at home on Saturday to fifth-ranked Purdue.

Wisconsin gained separation early with a pair of double-digit scoring runs.

Winter’s 3-pointer from the top of the arc capped a 13-0 run that put the Badgers in front 16-4.

Perry converted a three-point play to pull the Bruins within 17-9, but the Badgers responded with an 11-0 surge, going in front 28-9 on Boyd’s 3-pointer from the right corner just inside the midpoint of the half.

“Our offensive struggles were so bad, that it had our heads messed up on the other end,” Cronin said of their defensive breakdowns. “The first half, we didn’t contain the ball, so it was layup or kick-out three because they have us on the run because we were getting beat off the dribble – the same thing at Iowa. That is the No. 1 thing. That has to change.”

Wisconsin tied its biggest lead of the half at 33-13, but UCLA rallied within 33-19 when the Badgers went more than three minutes without scoring.

A second-half comeback that came up short didn’t make this loss any easier for the Bruins to stomach.

“We’ve got to dig deep within ourselves,” Perry said. “Cronin’s been telling us since Day 1 what to do and sometimes it’s just not clicking for all of us as a collective unit, and we’ve just got to take this as a learning lesson. … At the end of the day, it’s just defense. We have to lock in and lock down, that has to be our motto, 100%.”

Despite the rough road trip, Perry said no one need to panic.

“We know it’s a long season, we have a lot of other games to play, we’ve still got at least two more months to play, you know?” Perry said. “It’s like coach Cronin said. It’s like the NBA and the Big Ten, you win some, you lose some, but at the end of the day, how are you going to fight back?”

There was a dustup with 10 seconds left in the game. Dailey pushed Winter after absorbing a hard foul, resulting in a group of players gathering along the baseline. Winter was assessed a flagrant-1 foul and Dailey received a technical foul that was offset by a technical foul on Boyd.

UCLA hosts Maryland on Saturday at 5 p.m.