Coach Mark Turgeon walks with his head down when the Terps defeated Rider, 65-58, at Xfinity Center on Nov. 20, 2015.

Before the Terrapins men’s basketball team’s season started, coach Mark Turgeon said his squad needed to be ready for everyone’s best shot. Now that they were a top-five team, everyone was going to be looking to take them down.

Friday night was no exception.

Rider, a 0-3 team from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, didn’t relinquish its lead until the 5:28 mark of the second half. And though the No. 3 Terps escaped with a 65-58 win over the Broncs, Turgeon stressed that they have to play better regardless of the opponent.

“Don’t take teams lightly,” freshman center Diamond Stone said. “Rider, no offense, I’ve never heard of Rider before and I’m pretty sure my teammates haven’t either. But any team steps on the court they give it their all.”

In the Terps’ past two games, they have led for just 12 minutes and 13 seconds out of a possible 80 minutes. They are 2-0 over the stretch, but sluggish starts have led them relying on furious late rallies on their home court.

After Friday’s game, Turgeon said the blame falls on him.

“I just got do a better job of getting us ready,” Turgeon said. “I had plenty of time to do it, and I just didn’t have us ready to go tonight.”

With a game at No. 1 North Carolina less than two weeks away, Turgeon’s squad will seek to make improvements starting with back-to-back games in Cancun, Mexico, as part of the Cancun Challenge.

The Terps’ first chance to show adjustments will come against Illinois State on Tuesday before they battle Rhode Island/TCU on Wednesday.

“We keep learning a lot. I just want it to have some results,” Turgeon said. “We just got to get better. It’s really about us. We got to get better. Rider was terrific, but we got to play better.”

Last season, the Terps survived an early-season scare at home against Monmouth when they won 61-56 on Nov. 28, 2014. They went on to win a program-record 26 regular-season games, so early struggles against mid-majors don’t necessarily translate to poor results moving forward.

Senior Jake Layman hopes Friday is a learning experience for the Terps.

“Hopefully we can use our end-of-game experience to help us in the future,” Layman said. “But I think we need to start the game a lot better and start the second half off a lot better.”