Is Illinois’ fading men’s basketball team too hurt, too sick — and too young — to save its season?

How nasty was it after Illinois’ men’s basketball team’s 95-74 loss at Wisconsin earlier this week, a game that snapped the Illini’s nine-game winning streak in the border rivalry?

So nasty, the Illini wouldn’t line up and shake the Badgers’ hands.

But not because of ill will; rather, it was about plain old illness. A virus walloping players and involving — how to put it? — stuff coming out of both ends. You get the picture.

The Illini’s season is falling apart — they’ve lost seven of 12 since a 4-1 start in Big Ten play — and a combination of poor health and bad luck has had a good bit to do with it. Center Tomislav Ivisic spent several weeks dealing with mononucleosis, then a sprained ankle and then the latest virus to attack the roster. Freshman big man Morez Johnson Jr. broke his wrist in a fall last weekend. Tre White, Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, Jake Davis — they and others have been under the weather here and there on Team Can’t Get Right, which has had exactly one practice with all hands on deck since the first week of January.

“Frustrating. Challenging,” coach Brad Underwood said. “We’ve been going into games not knowing who we’re even starting.”

And now, Saturday night, comes perhaps the toughest matchup of the season, against No. 3 Duke (7 p.m., FOX, 890-AM) at Madison Square Garden. The Blue Devils, who’ve won 19 of their last 20 games and are led by soon-to-be No. 1 overall NBA pick Cooper Flagg, have a national championship on the brain. The Illini, with a record of 17-10, are just trying to get to the NCAA Tournament, which they likely will even if their downward trend continues.

Both Duke and Illinois are extremely young, which might end up being the Blue Devils’ undoing in March as has happened to so many freshmen-led superteams — some of them at Duke — in recent years. It’s on the list of Illinois’ problems, too, as prominently as anything else.

Freshman point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, the team’s best player and expected to be a lottery pick, is only 18. Fellow freshmen Will Riley and Johnson each turned 19 within the last month. Gibbs-Lawhorn and Davis, whose roles have had to increase, are only 20. At Wisconsin, they were hit for 31 points by grown-man scorer John Tonje, who will turn 24 a couple of weeks after the Final Four — a destination the soaring Badgers believe they can get to, in part because they are unusually old and experienced.

The Badgers are as “old” as any team in the Big Ten. Michigan’s Vlad Goldin and Nimari Burnett are 23, and everyone in the Wolverines’ rotation is in his 20s. Michigan State and Purdue are older than the Illini, too, and if you don’t think that matters, at least consider what an advantage it may have been last March to have 23-year-olds Terrence Shannon Jr. and Marcus Domask, 24-year-old Quincy Guerrier and 22-year-old Coleman Hawkins en route to the Elite Eight.

“Get old, stay old,” that great piece of longstanding college basketball wisdom, is as true as ever, even if it’s harder to pull off in the age of the transfer portal and NIL. The best teams in the Big Ten are exemplifying it this season, or coming close. Illinois, alas, isn’t one of them.

“We’re going to survive,” Underwood said. “We’re going to be fine. We’re a really good basketball team.”

It’s getting harder by the game to buy into that.

THREE-DOT DASH

• WAKE UP, BULLS FANS — you need to watch Illinois-Duke, too. How else are you going to know which Blue Devils freshman you want the Bulls to pick in June? You can’t have Flagg, but ace shooter Kon Knueppel and towering Khaman Maluach both could be available when the Bulls’ turn comes. Knueppel has the added bonus of being from Milwaukee, a potential stick in the Bucks’ eyes. Maluach has the added bonus of being 7-2 and a big 7-2 at that — lordy, a body like that would look good in red. …

• NORTHWESTERN’S 70-49 WIN Thursday at Ohio State was big, not just as an upset but because the bottom three teams in the Big Ten aren’t going to qualify for the conference tournament and the Wildcats aren’t out of the woods yet. At 5-11 with four games to go, they’re in 16th place — third-to-last — and will miss out on Indianapolis if they don’t take care of some late business. The next two, at Minnesota (6-9) and at home against Iowa (5-10), are gotta-have-’ems. …

• GAMES OF THE WEEKEND: No. 6 Tennessee at No. 7 Texas A&M (11 a.m. Saturday, ESPN), No. 8 Iowa State at No. 5 Houston (1 p.m. Saturday, ESPN), No. 3 Duke vs. Illinois (7 p.m. Saturday, FOX, 890-AM), UConn at No. 10 St. John’s (11 a.m. Sunday, FOX) and No. 13 Purdue at Indiana (12:30 p.m. Sunday, CBS).

Iowa State has won four straight games by double digits since its surprising three-game losing streak, so keep an eye out for the Cyclones. St. John’s is in full command of the Big East race at 14-2. Rick Pitino for national coach of the year?

• MY LATEST AP TOP 25 BALLOT: 1. Auburn, 2. Houston, 3. Duke, 4. Alabama, 5. Florida, 6. Tennessee, 7. Texas A&M, 8. St. John’s, 9. Texas Tech, 10. Iowa State, 11. Wisconsin, 12. Michigan, 13. Michigan State, 14. Clemson, 15. Purdue, 16. Arizona, 17. Kentucky, 18. Maryland, 19. Marquette, 20. Memphis, 21. Missouri, 22. Kansas, 23. UCLA, 24. New Mexico, 25. Louisville.