Jake Layman

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Mark Turgeon was tired of hearing the complaints and seeing the long faces. So during halftime at Cassell Coliseum last night, the Terrapins men’s basketball coach delivered a strident message to his frustrated players.

Guys who pout and feel sorry for themselves are going to watch the NCAA tournament from home, he said. Teams that have men will be in it, playing for a shot at a national title.

It didn’t matter the Terps had scored just one field goal over the final 10 minutes of the half. It didn’t matter they allowed a struggling Virginia Tech squad to enter the break on a 17-3 run. The time had arrived for a young group to finally respond to adversity on the road.

And respond they did. The Terps jumped to a fast start in the second half and made enough necessary plays down the stretch to secure the 60-55 win over the Hokies. They weathered a workhorse effort from guard Erick Green to escape with their first ACC road victory in exactly a year and their first in five tries this season.

“That was big for us,” said Turgeon, who’s now 3-12 in true road games with the Terps. “It’s going to go a long way for us.”

Green nagged the Terps all night, hitting a host of clutch baskets to keep the Hokies within striking distance until the waning moments. But it took the nation’s leading scorer 23 shots to net a game-high 29 points, and Virginia Tech fell to 2-7 when its star shoots below 50 percent from the field. On the night, the Terps held the Hokies to just 33.8 percent shooting.

That defensive showing proved key in the game’s critical stages. After center Alex Len hit two free throws with 58.4 seconds left to give the Terps a 56-53 lead, the Terps made two crucial stops against guard Robert Brown and Green, respectively. The Terps then connected on enough attempts from the charity stripe to secure their first road win since late November.

“I definitely think we grew up this game,” forward James Padgett said. “We made some stops and did what we had to do to get the win.”

The Terps (17-6, 5-5 ACC) jumped to a fast start against a Hokies (11-11, 2-7) team that entered last night’s contest on a four-game losing streak. Forward Jake Layman scored eight of his team-high 14 points before the first media timeout, and Turgeon’s squad cruised to a 21-10 lead midway through the first half.

But then the Terps’ immaturity began to show. They tallied a string of costly turnovers and missed shots, and allowed Green to drive through the lane for easy layups.

Virginia Tech capitalized on a more than six-minute Terps stretch without a field goal, tying the game at 22 on a Green free throw with 3:44 left in the half.

Padgett responded with a hook shot — the Terps’ lone field goal over the final 10 minutes — but the Hokies hit two shots to cap their 17-3 run and enter halftime with a 27-24 edge.

When Turgeon tore into his downtrodden players during the break, Green boasted 16 points and the Terps had 10 turnovers. They seemed another up-and-down second half away from taking a significant step away from the NCAA tournament bubble.

But Turgeon’s halftime tirade resonated with the youthful Terps. They emerged from the break firing, piecing together a 14-3 run that gave them an eight-point lead with 15:12 remaining.

The two teams traded blows until a 12-5 Hokies rally cut their deficit to 51-49 with about five minutes remaining. It was then a back-and-forth battle until the Terps created the necessary distance after Len’s two made free throws in the final minute.

“We knew we weren’t playing well in the first half and we knew we had to pick it up defensively,” Layman said. “We shut them down in the second half.”

Of course, that second-half emergence didn’t come out of nowhere. It took a fired-up coach to place the pressure on his inexperienced squad and stave off another ACC road disappointment.

“It’s never easy when you’re trying to grow up as a team,” Turgeon said. “We are growing up and getting better.”

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