After Maryland men’s basketball forward Bruno Fernando threw down a one-handed flush midway through the second half Wednesday, his right leg landed on the torso of Nebraska forward Tanner Borchardt.

Fernando lifted his foot up before putting his full weight on him, and then emphatically raised his left leg and kicked it out to the side, freeing himself and stepping over Borchardt.

Borchardt had hit the deck to try to draw a foul on Fernando, but a whistle didn’t come until several seconds after the dunk, when Huskers coach Tim Miles’ protests of the no-call earned a technical.

The Huskers couldn’t stop Fernando or forward Jalen Smith inside, with the Terps big men combining for 31 points and 30 rebounds, both posting double-doubles and playing strong defense in a 60-45 win in Lincoln.

“[Smith] changed the game for us offensively,” coach Mark Turgeon said. “He’s getting more comfortable, and tonight he had some matchups where we could throw it to him on the post and he could exploit it.”

The Huskers have been easy prey for No. 24 Maryland’s post players frequently in the past two years, with Fernando scoring 21 points against them last year and 18 in the first matchup this season, which Smith won with a floater in the closing seconds that were the last of his 15 points.

They backed up those performances Wednesday, with Smith finishing with 18 points and 11 rebounds, while Fernando had 11 points and a career-high 19 boards.

After practice Tuesday, Turgeon said he hoped Smith’s showing in the first matchup would provide the unsteady freshman confidence for the rematch.

Early, though, Smith struggled to guard Nebraska forward Isaiah Roby, who scored 12 of the Huskes’ first 15 points and gave them a 15-8 lead at the Under-12 media timeout.

“I was really worried after the way we started,” Turgeon said.

Just as Roby and the Huskers (13-10, 3-9 Big Ten) disappeared offensively, Smith heated up with a 6-0 personal run in under a minute that turned into a 15-0 Terps (18-6, 9-4) run spanning nearly eight minutes.

The Cornhuskers made a couple of free throws to break the streak but still made just one field goal in the final 11 minutes before halftime, and though the Terps didn’t take full advantage of that slump, they still entered the locker room with a 28-20 lead.

“We were a little bit flat,” Turgeon said, “and then we made some plays and kind of got going.”

A 9-0 Nebraska run just after halftime cut Maryland’s lead to two points, but Maryland responded with a quick 10-1 run that pushed the lead back to double digits, where it remained for the final 11:30 of Wednesday’s game.

The Terps held Nebraska to 21.1 percent shooting, with Roby’s 20-point night making up for nearly half of the Huskers’ output, due largely to his co-star James Palmer managing just 12 points on 13 shots.

“We did a nice job on Palmer,” Turgeon said. “Our guys were locked in.”

Nobody was better than Fernando and Smith, and behind their domination, Maryland dished a plummeting Nebraska squad its eighth loss in 10 games since entering 2019 ranked No. 24, putting Turgeon’s group back on track after disappointing losses to Illinois and Wisconsin pushed them to fifth place in the Big Ten.

“We’re getting better,” Turgeon said. “Our schedule’s really demanding right now.”