After Mike Watkins’ hook shot glanced off the rim and into a sea of red jerseys midway through the first half Wednesday, Maryland men’s basketball forward Bruno Fernando, forward Jalen Smith or perhaps even guard Anthony Cowan seemed to have an easy rebound in their grasp.

Instead, Fernando and Smith fumbled it, and the ball fell to Penn State forward Trent Buttrick. Maryland guard Eric Ayala had assumed the Terps would be in possession and had taken a few steps upcourt, leaving guard Myles Dread open to receive a pass from Buttrick and survey the floor.

Dread saw Fernando — seemingly in shock that the Nittany Lions still had the ball — wasn’t guarding Watkins, who had restationed himself on the low post. Dread dished a 15-foot bounce pass to Watkins for an easy bucket, extending Penn State’s lead to 16 points and drawing a timeout from a defeated Mark Turgeon.

Throughout their embarrassing 78-61 loss on Wednesday, the No. 17 Terps struggled to keep the Nittany Lions off the offensive glass. Turgeon’s team surrendered 10 backbreaking second chance points late in the first half of the team’s worst performance this season.

“It’s disappointing. That’s all we do, is try to rebound [and] talk about it,” Turgeon said. “I mean it’s just like, come on guys.”

[Read more: Penn State dominates No. 17 Maryland men’s basketball in 78-61 loss]

Penn State didn’t have a single offensive board until the 9:25 mark of the first half, then grabbed six before halftime. That stretch also featured 10 of the team’s 12 second-chance points, including Watkins’ finish and a three-point play from forward John Harrar with 27 seconds left to extend the Nittany Lions’ edge to 42-20 at the break.

“We didn’t do the little things today,” Cowan said. “We didn’t box out. We didn’t get loose balls.”

One of the only sequences when Maryland showed life was a 13-2 run to cut the lead to 16 points with about six minutes left. Dread followed up the run by missing an open transition layup, which seemed to be the gift the Terps needed during their closest approximation of a comeback attempt all night.

But nobody got a body on forward Lamar Stevens, who easily tipped in Dread’s miss and halted any burgeoning momentum Turgeon’s squad may have developed.

“Anytime you see an offensive rebound — we call them dagger threes. It’s just the way it works in basketball,” Penn State coach Patrick Chambers said. “The fact we got some extra possessions, it really helped us. It kept the momentum on our side.”

[Read more: Mark Turgeon doesn’t want to talk about turnovers, but he knows they’re a problem]

Maryland has the Big Ten’s best rebounding margin. Penn State is a middle-of-the-pack team on the boards. But that wasn’t how Wednesday’s game unfolded.

The Nittany Lions became just the fourth team to out-rebound Maryland all season, finishing with a 34-33 advantage. And Turgeon said the Terps were lucky just to get it that close.

“How we were tied going into the last timeout on the boards is a miracle in itself,” Turgeon said. “We fumbled five or six balls that we had our hands on out of bounds, gave them five deadball rebounds.”

Rebounding was far from Maryland’s only deficiency in the spiritless loss, but it reared its head at inopportune times, setting the Terps back when they tried to stave off what felt inevitable after about five minutes of play.

Road defeats as complete and surprising as Wednesday’s are often chalked up to a lack of energy or just having an off night, both of which certainly played a role against the Nittany Lions. But fundamental breakdowns like the ones that led to a handful of crippling buckets from Penn State were just as prevalent, and are perhaps a more pressing concern ahead of Sunday’s matchup with No. 9 Michigan.

“Our guys have to respond,” Turgeon said. “We have to practice better. We have to have a couple good days of practicing leading into Sunday.”