If the Big Ten Tournament is a practice for the NCAA Tournament, as UCLA men’s basketball coach Mick Cronin said the other day, his Bruins will probably be running sprints home from Indianapolis.

Fourth-seeded UCLA fell behind by 10 halfway through the first half and never came any closer to catching fifth-seeded Wisconsin, getting blown out 86-70 in a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game Friday.

Cronin was feisty in answering questions about the challenging matchup, with the Bruins’ bigs having to extend and defend on the 3-point line, and how physical the Badgers were against 7-foot-3 Aday Mara, who played just 11 minutes before leaving with an injury.

“We got our (butt) kicked. That’s the headline,” Cronin said.

The No. 18 Badgers (25-8) were on fire inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse, connecting on 30 of 58 (51.7%) from the field and an unconscious 19 of 32 (59.4%) from 3-point range.

The 19 3-pointers tied a Big Ten Tournament single-game record.

“You got to give Wisconsin credit. They shot the lights out,” Cronin said. “We all have weaknesses, and there are teams that can shoot it at five positions. Really, we don’t have the personnel. We don’t match up well with teams like that, and we haven’t all year. When teams are like that, like when Michigan made shots like that, we don’t have an athletic lineup that can just switch and really shut that down.”

Cronin said his vote for Big Ten Player of the Year went to Badgers senior guard John Tonje, who led the charge by hitting all six of his 3-pointers and finishing with a game-high 26 points on 9-of-10 shooting. John Blackwell added 18 points with 4 3-pointers, five rebounds and four assists.

UCLA (22-10), which was led by Sebastian Mack’s 18 points, shot 32.4% (22 of 68) and made just 9 of its 30 (30.0%) 3-pointers.

“To be honest, we let them get comfortable too early. Once you get a team like that, that can hit 3s all over the floor like that, it’s hard to stop them when you start trying to pressure them and stuff,” Mack said. “We didn’t do none of what we were supposed to do game plan-wise. We failed miserably at that. They just played comfortable, and they looked like it, too.

“We just looked like the team that came out flat and just stayed flat. We’ve just got to work on not doing the same thing and relapsing on what we did today.”

With four 3-pointers, Kobe Johnson scored 14 points. William Kyle II and Trent Perry each added nine points.

“I’d like to give William Kyle credit. I thought he played unbelievably hard and competed. Really proud of him. It doesn’t surprise me,” Cronin said. “He hasn’t had a lot of minutes lately, but that’s who he is. Didn’t surprise me he was going to compete that way.”

By halftime, the Bruins trailed 48-29. The deficit ballooned to 80-53 after a Tonje layup with 6:09 to play. The final score was only as close as it was after UCLA went on a fruitless 11-0 run over the final 3:10.

Now the Bruins, after that poor showing, will await their NCAA Tournament fate on Selection Sunday having split their past eight games.

Wisconsin will face top-seeded Michigan State, a 74-64 winner over eighth-seeded Oregon on Friday morning, in the semifinals today.