Win or lose, the Oregon men’s basketball team had a charter flight back to Eugene waiting after its third-round game of the NCAA Tournament against Wisconsin Saturday night in Milwaukee.

At halftime, Oregon led 49-37, and it appeared the Ducks were headed for a two-day layover at home before jetting to Anaheim, Calif., for the regional semifinals.

After the second-seeded Badgers rallied for a 85-77 victory, the return trip turned out to be Oregon’s final flight of the season.

“I’m just mad,” senior Johnathan Loyd said.

He wasn’t alone in a quiet and somber locker room after Oregon’s season ended at 24-10.

“It never changes in 34 years of coaching,” coach Dana Altman said. “The last one hurts.”

The Ducks led Wisconsin 75-74 after a three-pointer by Joseph Young with 2:50 left in the game, but the Badgers closed the game on an 11-2 run.

“That definitely makes it harder,” senior Mike Moser said of Oregon’s near miss.

The seventh-seeded Ducks were underdogs against the in-state favorite but almost busted some brackets.

“I didn’t think it would be over,” Altman said. “We came into this game fully expecting to win.”

While Oregon ranked among the nation’s top offensive teams all season, Altman was constantly preaching the need for better defense and rebounding, and that was the case again after the game.

The Badgers scored 48 points and outrebounded Oregon 22-11 in the second half, including three offensive rebounds before Ben Brust hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 1:07 left.

“I wish I could have gotten them to guard a little better,” Altman said. “That hurt us (Saturday). We knew rebounding would be a problem because we played small a lot this year.

“We should have been a better defensive team, but that’s on me.”

Oregon’s victory over BYU in the second round gave the Ducks a victory in back-to-back NCAA tourneys for the first time.

Altman has led the Ducks to 97 wins, the most in any four-year stretch for Oregon.

The 76 wins in the past three seasons are also the best by Oregon for any three-year span.

Next year, Altman will go without Loyd for the first time at Oregon after the senior set the school record by playing in all 144 games of his career. He is the winningest player in Oregon history after playing in all 97 wins during the past four seasons.

The 5-foot-8 point guard leaves the program ranked fourth in school history with 152 steals and fifth with 468 assists. His 161 assists as a senior are the ninth-most in one season for the Ducks.

Young’s first season with the Ducks after transferring from Houston for his junior year also put him in the record books. He scored 643 points, fifth-best at Oregon for one season. His 155 free throws rank seventh for a season.

Senior guard Jason Calliste shot 50.4 percent from three-point range to become the first Duck to make more than half of his shots behind the arc in a season.

Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveMims_RG . Email steve.mims@registerguard.com .