Northwestern (10-14, 1-10 Big Ten) was back at square one Tuesday in a 68-44 defeat to Michigan State (16-8, 7-4). 

The Wildcats lost in a manner more similar to the three blowouts in coach Chris Collins’ first Big Ten games last January than the heartbreaking string that encompassed much of the past month.

“Obviously it was a very disappointing night,” Collins said. “Tonight hasn’t been indicative of how we’ve played in terms of effort and fight and competitiveness. I can’t explain it. We just didn’t have it tonight.”

NU has now lost 10 straight games. The Cats have not won a contest in 2015. They have not won a Big Ten home game since Jan. 21, 2014 against a Purdue team that finished last in the conference that year.

The Cats looked like a progressing team during a five-loss stretch where they could at least hang their hats on a 3.4-point average margin of defeat.

But their last three losses have come by an average of 18.3 points, with this latest drubbing coming against a Michigan State team that sits on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

“A loss is a loss either way,” freshman forward Vic Law said. “No team practices to lose whether it’s by 2 points or by 20. When you lose, it stings all the same.”

NU hung close for 10 minutes, trailing 16-13, when a 3-pointer by Marvin Clark Jr. sparked a 22-point run by Michigan State.

While the Spartans offense was on fire, the Cats faced a 14-minute field-goal drought that extended into the second half.

The Spartans took a 38-14 lead into halftime as a consequence of the diverging offenses.

“We might’ve played our best half of basketball,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “I told Chris, they might’ve played their worst half.”

This was not the first time NU has allowed a monstrous run.

Purdue opened the second half on a 21-4 run a few games ago. Nebraska had a stretch with 17 unanswered points last week. Wisconsin opened Saturday’s matchup on a 21-4 spurt.

The Cats tried out a 2-3 zone, a defense designed to force an offense into jump shots, against the second-best 3-point shooting team in the Big Ten.

“We just wanted to switch it up and see,” Collins said of using the zone. “You want to throw something different at a team, maybe get them out of their rhythm. As long as you’re identifying shooters, it can still be effective against good shooting teams. You need to talk and have energy, and we didn’t have energy tonight.”

When they switched back to man-to-man, NU defenders were caught going under screens, leaving Michigan State shooters wide open.

When the Spartans fed big men Matt Costello and Gavin Schilling, the Cats were quick to double team, which also left shooters open.

“I thought we moved the ball pretty well,” Izzo said. “They do a great job of funneling in. We worked hard on not passing in but kicking out. Our M.O. was to kick it out. We had some good cross-court passes early on.”

Michigan State made 3-pointers no matter what defensive strategy NU tried. The Spartans nailed nine triples in the first half and finished 13-of-25 (52 percent) on the night.

The Cats found a bit of offense in the second half, although they could not make much of a dent in the Spartans’ lead. A 20-4 run in the final minutes cut the deficit as low as 19 points, but it was too late to matter.

Junior guard Tre Demps was the only NU player with any sort of consistent offense, posting 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting.

Law had one of his better games this season with 9 points, seven rebounds and three steals.

“If no one is playing hard, someone has to,” Law said.

A losing streak reaching double digits stings, but at this point it appears even the fight that emboldened the Cats during much of their losing run has temporarily disappeared.

“They had a sense of urgency with a game they had to win, and we didn’t have that,” Collins said of the Spartans. “For the first time I saw (my) guys with heads down that looked a little defeated.”

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