Mark Turgeon

More than two-and-a-half decades ago, an undersized role player captured national attention in basketball’s most acclaimed arena.

Mark Turgeon, then a junior guard on a loaded Kansas team, was facing Louisville in the first-ever Preseason NIT at Madison Square Garden in New York City. On one particular play, he managed to squeeze a pass beyond the outstretched arms of Cardinals guard Milt Wagner. The backdoor assist earned Turgeon — who averaged just 2.4 points per game that season — an appearance on CNN’s “Play of the Day.”

Turgeon has made numerous SportsCenter appearances and garnered plenty of honors since that early brush with fame. Yet as the Terrapins men’s basketball coach stood on the Comcast Center court Saturday, his mind wandered to that moment in November 1985.

“When I made the pass, you couldn’t even see me because I was so little,” said Turgeon, whose No. 2-seed Terps will play No. 3-seed Iowa in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden tonight. “All of a sudden, the ball goes to this guy, and he catches it and dunks it. That was pretty cool for me.”

The New York Knicks’ home arena has a knack for creating lasting memories. It’s where Joe Frazier dealt Muhammad Ali his first professional loss. It’s where Tom McMillen led the Terps to their lone NIT championship in 1972. It’s where Reggie Miller famously taunted director Spike Lee during the 1995 NBA playoffs.

So as the Terps prepare to face the Hawkeyes, they’re no longer fretting over what-ifs or lamenting a third straight NCAA tournament absence. Rather, the young team is embracing a rare chance to play for a championship in what Turgeon fondly calls the “mecca” of basketball.

Moments after surviving top-seeded Alabama, 58-57, Tuesday in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Terps players excitedly exchanged factoids about Madison Square Garden in their Coleman Coliseum locker room.

Forward John Auslander informed a couple of teammates that, contrary to popular opinion, the arena is typically sized for an NBA venue. Center Alex Len said he heard it’s impossible to see fans’ faces while playing there. And senior forward James Padgett — who won a New York Public School Athletic League AA state championship at Madison Square Garden as a high school senior — told reporters that stepping on the Knicks’ hardwood is a special opportunity.

In those brief exchanges, the Terps were still basking in the chance to end an up-and-down season hoisting a trophy at an arena they revered as children.

“It’s not the NCAA tournament,” forward Dez Wells said, “but right now, an NIT championship sounds pretty good to me.”

An NIT title would be no small feat for a team that seemed incapable of an extensive postseason run little more than a month ago. Moments after struggling through a disappointing 78-68 loss at Georgia Tech on Feb. 27, Turgeon’s squad hit what players now call “rock bottom.” They were disconnected, uninspired and frustrated.

The Terps’ key adjustment, Turgeon said, came after a March 6 home loss to North Carolina. Desperate to save an erratic season, the second-year coach started stressing the importance of having fun. He talked to players about playing loose and making runs, about trying to enjoy the group’s last few guaranteed games.

The message seemed to resonate. The Terps have since beaten Wake Forest on the road, upset then-No. 2 Duke in the ACC tournament, ousted two regular-season conference champions and upended a Crimson Tide team on Tuesday that hadn’t lost a home game since Dec. 30.

“We definitely feel as though we’re a team,” guard Nick Faust said. “We’re playing more as a team, and things are just flowing for us. So we definitely are going into the game with a lot of confidence.”

The Terps (25-12) will face a similarly confident Iowa squad tonight. Since losing a critical matchup against Big Ten bottom-feeder Nebraska on Feb. 23, the Hawkeyes (24-12) have cobbled together a 7-2 record. They notched notable wins over Virginia and Illinois in that span, while narrowly falling to then-No. 8 Michigan State.

But playing hot teams is a part of winning a postseason crown, Turgeon said. If the Terps hope to face the winner of BYU and Baylor on Thursday, they’ll need to show their current three-game winning streak — their longest such run since nonconference play — is no fluke.

They’ll have to beat Iowa beneath the bright lights of the sport’s most historic venue.

“It’s just really cool for our guys,” Turgeon said. “This is where you want to be. So I know our guys will be fired up, but I also know Iowa’s players will be fired up.”

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