NEW YORK -- For several years now, Maryland has been searching for depth at the point guard position. Having a standout guard in Melo Trimble for the past three years was great for the Terps, but when Trimble was in foul trouble or needed a rest, head coach Mark Turgeon was hard pressed to find another ball handler he could rely on.

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Last season, then-freshman Anthony Cowan came to rescue with a well-rounded point guard skill set right out of high school. With Trimble now in the professional ranks, Cowan is set to takeover as Maryland’s primary ball handler this season, and it appears that he’ll have much more help behind him than Trimble ever had.

“Especially since I’ve been here, it’s probably the greatest depth we’ve had at [point guard],” Turgeon said at Big Ten Media Day. “If you look at last year, Melo was in 71 percent of our ball screens. This year it will be divided a lot more equally between Anthony [Cowan], Kevin [Huerter], Justin [Jackson], Dion [Wiley]. And then you add a guy like [power forward] Ivan Bender, who actually thinks like a point guard. He’s a pass-first guy and he has really improved. He has really gotten better. We have a really good group of guys that know how to play and share the ball.”

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As a former point guard himself, Turgeon can appreciate it when a player can be a floor general and facilitate for his teammates. Entering this season, he not only has guards that can put it on the floor with the best of them, he also has several big men who know how to get others involved in the offense.

“We have a lot of guys -- being a point guard, you know, I like having a lot of guys on the floor that know how to play,” Turgeon said. “And so almost every perimeter player on our team, including Justin Jackson, played a little bit of point guard for their high school team, except Jared Nickens, and they all think that way. So if practice is any indication, we'll have a lot of different guys in position to make plays for us. And even Bender is one of the best big guys I've ever coached as far as passing the ball, having a great feel for the game. So have a very intelligent team that's talented. So that could be a good sign for us.”

Turgeon was not shy at Big Ten Media Day about sharing his plans to work Justin Jackson into more of a point guard role. Jackson played primarily at the four for Maryland last year, but his ability to dribble, pass and shoot make him a viable candidate to be a point-forward for the Terps this season.

“We're going to use Justin a little bit differently than we did last year, the ball being in his hands hopefully a little bit more,” Turgeon said. “He's an amazing scorer, shoots the three, he's got mid-range game. He's got post up, scores around the rim.He's really a good player. He can really pass the ball. And hopefully we're going to put him in positions coming off ball screens and isolations where not only is he making plays for himself but he's making plays for his teammates.”

Jackson and Bender are big bodies who can post up and facilitate from down low, but as a 6-foot-7 wing, Kevin Huerter also possesses the build and court vision to be a force with the ball in his hands.

Huerter played mostly point guard in high school and has one of the highest basketball IQs on Maryland’s roster. Along with Jackson, Huerter’s duties as a ball handler are also expected to increase this season.

“I think [Jackson and I] were both capable of it last year, but I think with our personnel last year and some of the injuries we had we were both kind of playing positions that we weren’t used to playing,” Huerter said. “I was playing at the three and my whole life I’ve been playing at the one or the two. And Justin was playing at the four and his whole life he tried to become a guard.

“So I think we both had the skills to do it last year but the people we had didn’t allow us to. So definitely this year coming in I think we’re a much bigger team than we were last year and a much longer team, so I think we’re going to be able to move down a position and play the positions I think we both want to play and that we can see ourselves playing in the future. And I think we’ll both enjoy it a lot more.”

And then there’s the freshman, Darryl Morsell, who is already receiving rave reviews from coaches and teammates for the physicality and energy he has brought to Terps practices.

“Darryl is a tough kid,” Turgeon said. “He works hard. He works as hard as anybody on the team, and we have a hard-working team… We’re expecting Darryl to help us a lot this year.”

Morsell’s teammates have taken notice to his hard-nosed game and impeccable work ethic, and Huerter believes he could become Maryland’s most valuable backcourt defender because of his ability to play and guard the one and the two.

“Darryl right now is playing point guard for us,” Huerter said. “Him and Anthony go at it everyday in practice. But Darryl was somebody in high school who played the two more. He said he only really played the point in AAU. So he can play either position and he’s 6-foot-3, 6-foot-4; he’s a big guard, very physical. His body doesn’t look like a freshman. And for us he’s also a really good defender. He’ll be able to guard the one through three we think, so he’s going to be able to do a lot of different things for us. He’s a guy who’s definitely a team-first guy. He’s not going out there looking for his points. He’s out there and he’s a really good passer and he’ll guard the best player on the other team every game.”

It’s no secret that basketball in general is moving toward a positionless style of play. And with so many members of Maryland’s roster possessing the skills to be used in multiple ways, the Terps have a lot of lineup flexibility that should play into their favor this season.

“This team is very versatile, so we can all play different positions at any point in the game,” Cowan said.