STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania — Rodney Rice was 1-for-12 when Ja’Kobi Gillespie held the ball at the top of the key with 20 seconds left against Penn State. Still, Gillespie — who had 19 points on eight shot attempts — didn’t hesitate to find him.

Gillespie drove past graduate guard Ace Baldwin Jr. with 20 seconds left and drew help defense. It freed up Rice in the corner for Gillespie to pass to, and forced Rice’s defender to scramble.

Rice dribbled around his defender along the baseline, giving him space to make his second basket of the afternoon. The score made it a two-possession game, and with it, Maryland beat Penn State 68-64 on Saturday for its first win at the Bryce Jordan Center in a decade.

Coach Kevin Willard said it was probably Maryland’s best win of the year because it came right after what he called the most gut-wrenching loss of his career.

Gillespie made a rare blunder late in that game, taking an early 3-pointer on the Terps’ final possession that allowed for Michigan State’s game-winning half-court shot. One contest later, his decision-making created the biggest basket of the game.

“I knew he was gonna make the shot,” Gillespie said.

The point guard was one of three Terps in double-figures on Saturday, finishing with 19 points on just eight shot attempts. Freshman big man Derik Queen had a game-high 23 and fifth year guard Selton Miguel added 17.

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Gillespie made a pair of threes inside the first minute against the Nittany Lions after going 0-for-6 on Wednesday. Fellow guards Miguel and Rice added three more triples to give the Terps an 18-11 lead before a 7-0 Nittany Lions run erased that.

Penn State (15-15, 5-14 Big Ten) grabbed a five-point lead four minutes later as its zone defense frustrated Maryland (22-7, 12-6 Big Ten). Its ball movement slowed down and made executing pick-and-rolls tougher. When the Terps finally did get open shots, they were out of rhythm.

Maryland’s guard trio didn’t score in the final 12 minutes of the half — Queen was the only Terp who found success against the zone with four field goals. Maryland made just five of its final 20 shots and entered halftime down 36-30.

“You’re not supposed to go zone when I’m in the game,” Queen said. “We got great coaching, zone beaters, and we just got great players that know how to beat the zone.”

Those struggles didn’t immediately carry into the second. The Terps made eight of their first 10 attempts, taking a 48-44 lead less than six minutes into the half. The eighth make was a Gillespie layup, which was his first basket in more than 20 minutes after a blazing start.

“We got four wide-open shots against their zone. [We needed to] just keep hitting the middle, keep going inside,” Willard said. “I thought we passed the ball out of the zone much better [in the second].”

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Miguel and Queen were the catalysts for Maryland’s early second-half success. Those two and Gillespie combined for 59 of Maryland’s 68 points, while the Terps bench’ scored zero points for the third time in the last five games. Fellow starters Rice and Julian Reese, had quiet offensive days.

Reese only had four points but tallied 15 rebounds, three blocks and six steals. The Nittany Lions shot a horrid 10-for-25 on layups, largely due to Reese’s “elite” rim protection, according to Willard.

Penn State had opportunities to retake the lead amid a 1-for-12 Maryland stretch, but the Terps never relinquished it after pulling ahead early in the second half. They led between one and six points for the remainder of the game.

Queen was pivotal during that stretch, scoring nine points en route to his 10th 20-point game of the year. Melo Trimble is the only other Maryland freshman to reach that mark in the last 16 years. The freshman big man also had a costly technical foul for flexing after his last made field goal.

His mistake didn’t end up costing the Terps, who escaped with a Quadrant 1 road win and snapped their skid in State College despite shooting under 40 percent for the second straight game.

“[Reese] told me about [the losing streak at Penn State] early in the season, and I was like, ‘How?’,” Queen said. “But we just don’t look at that, we’re just trying to win.”