CORAL GABLES, Fla. – John Gilchrist didn’t say much Saturday, but it was enough to convey the frustrations of a team again putting its NCAA tournament prospects in jeopardy.

“We’re in a pretty bad position,” the junior point guard said bluntly in the locker room after the Terrapins’ 75-73 overtime loss at Miami.

The Terps are heading in the wrong direction with seven regular season games remaining. Since toppling Duke and Georgia Tech — both ranked at the time — the Terps have lost to last-place Clemson and a Hurricanes team off four losses in its past five games.

The team is tied for sixth in the ACC with a 4-5 conference mark and surely will fall from the national rankings, when they are released today, after a brief return last week.

More troubling for the squad, though, is the developing trend of sluggish starts. After his team fell behind by 16 points at halftime Tuesday against Clemson — a deficit from which the Terps never recovered — coach Gary Williams said he hoped the players would learn the importance of starting strongly.

Instead, they let Miami enter halftime with a 29-26 lead, despite the Hurricanes shooting a miserable 20.6 percent from the field. The Terps managed one field goal in a stretch of eight minutes, 54 seconds midway through the first half.

“On the road, it’s on you as a team to create your own energy,” junior Nik Caner-Medley said. “In this league, you need to come out and play well and play well for 40 minutes. We can’t let it be a trend.”

Williams said last week he thought the second half of the schedule set up favorably for the Terps, who had to play three top-five teams on the road in January. The Miami loss wasn’t how he envisioned starting the final stretch.

“It’s a game that’s winnable for us obviously and it would have been a good win to get started the second half of the season,” Williams said.

The Terps have been in this position before. They were also 4-5 through nine conference games last season and fell as low as 4-8. They surged into the postseason by winning three of their last four regular season contests and sweeping the ACC tournament.

The team returns to Comcast Center for a two-game homestand beginning Tuesday against Virginia Tech. Junior guard Chris McCray answered the question of where the Terps go from here.

“Up,” he said. “There ain’t too much further we can go down.”