COLLEGE PARK, Md. — No. 6 Maryland (3-0) remains undefeated, is still a top-10 team, and will host another non-conference opponent at Xfinity Center Nov. 19, but while much stays the same in College Park, the Terps are relishing the opportunity to try new things schematically this season.

Maryland will host Fairfield (1-3) Tuesday night and head coach Mark Turgeon will be looking to move his team to a 4-0 record for the sixth straight season as he continues to experiment with the Terps’ athletic ability and depth in order to execute multiple defenses within a game.

“We’ve added a defense every game,” Turgeon said Nov. 18. “We threw a little press on them the other day and we had just put it in this week to speed it up. We knew Oakland was going to play a bit slower. It worked for us. You’d like to think Fairfield might have a game plan for it. We’re going to do something differently again tomorrow night defensively and we’ll see if it works. We just want to be a multi-dimensional team defensively because we think we’re deeper, we think we’re in great shape, and I think that helps us. It gives the opposing team more to work on.”

Turgeon’s relatively young team is still gelling together, but his hope is to use these early-season games to prepare the Terps for what’s down the road.

“I don’t show things until I think we’re good enough to do it,” Turgeon said. “So we’re going to show a defense tomorrow night that we’ve been practicing for about two and a half weeks. I love it. It’s just going to help be ready for the really good teams.”

In each of Maryland’s last two games, the Terps have gotten off to a slow start against inferior opponents. When the Terps led Rhode Island by just three points at halftime, they switched to a 1-3-1 zone in the second half and thwarted the Rams defensively while creating runs through turnovers and transition ball. Against Oakland in their last outing, the Terps used zone-trap and run-and-jump defenses to speed up the Golden Grizzlies and pull away in the second half.

Maryland is focused on getting off to a faster start against the Stags Tuesday night, and throwing a new defensive look in early in the game could do the trick.

“I’m sure that’s something [Turgeon] is going to look at because we have been starting slow,” Terps junior guard Darryl Morsell said Monday. “We’re going to come out [Tuesday] and try to focus on having a fast start, not getting behind early, not fighting from behind because we won’t be able to play like that all year. But it’s really on the players. We have to come ready to play. Even though they try to slow the game down we still have to try to get out in transition and that all starts with getting steals, getting deflections, and just getting rebounds and getting down the court and using our athletes.”

Morsell — one of the better athletes on his team — has benefited from the new defensive looks and up-tempo style Maryland has been playing recently, and he said this year’s squad in College Park is looking to run as much as possible.

“I feel like we run every chance we get,” Morsell said. “Off of all misses, our main goal is to run. We have bigs who can push and stuff like that. I feel like the changing of defenses is to throw the offense off, so they don’t get used to anything.”

Maryland’s ability to change defenses mid-game — along with Turgeon’s decision to do so — has helped the Terps hold their opponents to 37.8, 20.6, and 36.0 percent shooting in the second half of games, respectively. And perhaps the most promising part for Turgeon is that it has been done with various lineups on the floor because of how deep his roster is this year.

“We have so much depth and we’re so dynamic and athletic that whatever [Turgeon] throws at us we can go out there and execute,” Terps sophomore guard Eric Ayala said. “Anybody can go out there and fulfill spots and all of that defensively.”

A defensive-minded head coach at heart, Turgeon said Monday that playing multiple defenses throughout the course of a season is something he’s been wanting to do for some time. But now in his ninth-season at Maryland, he finally feels like he has the roster to do just that.

“I’ve always wanted to change my defenses,” Turgeon said. “Last year, we practiced a lot of different (defenses), we just weren’t any good at any of them. So we had a young team with five freshmen and we said let’s just get really good at one defense. Now we became pretty good at our zone as the year went on, but last year was a struggle.

“Now I’ve got veteran guys and actually my young guys are smart so it allows us to do more. So I’ve been wanting to do this for multiple years. We weren’t very good two years ago, by Maryland’s standards. Last year, we were young. Now, we’re a little bit older and we’re deep.”

Turgeon is thrilled to be able to game plan and execute the way he’d like to defensively with his team this season and believes the feeling is mutual between him and his players.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this many multiple defenses,” Turgeon said. “The guys love it. If I start putting stuff in and the guys start looking at me like I’m crazy then I stop. But every time I add something the guys love it. They get excited, so that excites me and we get better because of it.”

Maryland will use its multiple defensive looks Tuesday night to do its best to stop Fairfield’s leading scorer Jesus Cruz. A 6-foot-5 junior from Puerto Rico, Cruz is averaging 19.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 2.0 steals per game this season.

Cruz is not nearly the only international player on the Stags’ roster. He is joined by seven other international players from seven different countries at Fairfield.

Maryland and Fairfield have met just once previously, with the Terps earning a 71-42 victory 10 years ago in College Park. Maryland is 43-4 in non-conference home games at the XFINITY Center since 2015. The Terps are 33-6 overall at home since the start of the 2017-2018 season.

Maryland and Fairfield are scheduled to tip-off in College Park at 8:30 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on the Maryland Sports Radio Network and televised on the Big Ten Network.