NEW YORK -- As a former point guard himself, it’s no surprise that Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon’s teams tend to be very guard oriented. That has certainly been the case during his time in College Park with versatile combo guard Dez Wells leading the Terps before eventually passing down the reins to flashy scorer and fellow combo guard Melo Trimble.

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But with most of the members of its frontcourt returning from last season and the breakout potential of former four-star, freshman big man Bruno Fernando, Maryland might be giving its opponents a different look on offense this year.

“It’s definitely not like last year,” Terps sophomore point guard Anthony Cowan said at Big Ten Media Day. “This year we’re definitely putting the ball in the post. And we know most of the time we can get a bucket out of it. That’s going to be big for us, especially with me, Kevin [Huerter] and Justin [Jackson] not always having to score on the perimeter.”

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Cowan added that he knows Maryland is known for its guard play, but he believes that reputation could start to change this season because of the amount of playmakers the Terps have in the post.

“I don’t remember any recent Maryland teams having a true center, besides Diamond [Stone], that they could go to,” Cowan said. “This year we definitely have a couple of guys we could go to--Ivan Bender, [Michal Cekovsky], Bruno [Fernando], even Sean Obi sometimes. I think we’re a lot deeper at that position.”

Fellow Terps sophomore and versatile wing Kevin Huerter echoed Cowan’s sentiments and thinks Maryland is going to be much harder to defend this season because of the physicality and skill the frontcourt brings to the table.

“I just think we’ll be a lot tougher to guard this year because of our inside presence,” Huerter said. “I think last year that was maybe something that we lacked and a lot of it had to do with injuries, but bringing in Bruno, he’s a guy we can post up and he can go one-on-one to the basket. Ceko is looking really good. He’s back from his foot injury. And obviously our guard play the last couple of years has been really good, so I think that’s something we’ll bring back to this team. We’ll just be tougher to guard because I think we compete at every position. Every one of our guys could have a game where he scores 20 points. So I think it’s going to depend upon whoever is hot that game and gets the ball down the stretch.”

Huerter admitted that much of the Terps offense last season revolved around the pick-and-roll to create as many opportunities for Trimble to get downhill as possible. He’s expecting Maryland to spread the ball around a lot more this season and believes a player like Fernando could be someone the Terps offense works through.

“Bruno is a guy that we think can legitimately be on an All-Freshman team or win Freshman of the Year,” Huerter said. “Not to put that type of pressure on him, but he puts that pressure on himself. Bruno is a really physically imposing guy. Every single time he catches it on the block he’s trying to dunk on you. So I think he’s always putting pressure on the defense. He’s really big. He has freakishly long arms. He’s a shot blocker. And offensively, he’s gotten a lot better since he has gotten here of making post moves. He can hit a three, too. So he can really kind of do it all, to be honest.

“So for us it’s just keeping him healthy this year. He’s got to learn our offense. He’s still learning the placement of where he needs to be in order to make himself look a lot better. He doesn’t have to go one-on-one every time he gets the ball, and I think he’s realizing that and is doing a lot better. But he’s going to be a really tough matchup for a lot of teams this year, especially if he’s playing at the four.”

Turgeon shared Huerter’s excitement for the 6-foot-10, 245-pound freshman from Angola, who he called one of the hardest-working players he has ever seen in his 30 years of coaching college basketball.

“Bruno is kind of a guy that we really haven't had since I've been at Maryland, just a 6'9", really strong, hard-playing, really, really good basketball player,” Turgeon said. “He's talented. He can do a lot of things.I think he'll really help us defensively in shot blocking and rebounding. And he runs the floor. He's probably one of the hardest playing and practicing players I've ever coached. So it's exciting."

Besides the potential impact Fernando could have on Maryland’s post play, another big factor in the success of the Terps frontcourt will be the health of senior center Michal Cekovsky.

Cekovsky played in just 17 of Maryland’s 33 games last year and started only four because of various health issues throughout the season. He showed some very promising signs for the Terps in his limited action, but Maryland needs him to be more available this season.

Although Turgeon admitted that Cekovsky still isn’t at 100 percent, he said the 7-foot-1 Slovakian is getting close to full health and has been fully cleared to resume basketball activities and workouts for nearly two months.

But Cekovsky will be entering the 2017-2018 season healthier than he was at any point last year, and Turgeon believes the combination of him and Fernando down in the post could be a difference-maker for the Terps.

“I think everybody’s going to chip in, but Ceko is now scoring better on the block than he did at any time last season for us because even though he’s only 85-90 percent right now he was never healthy last year,” Turgeon said. “It was one injury after another for him. And this Bruno Fernando kid can really score down there. He’s a beast.”

While Cekovsky and Fernando are expected to see the largest chunk of minutes in the frontcourt for Maryland, they will be rotated in with fellow Terps big men Sean Obi and Ivan Bender.

Bender is a returning junior to College Park and Obi is a graduate transfer from Duke. Both will bring experience and size to Maryland’s roster, but their skill sets will help the Terps in different ways.

Obi is a physical bruiser down low.

“Sean [Obi] doesn’t walk by a guy without hitting them,” Turgeon said. “He likes to hit people. He’s physical and he absolutely works as hard as he can possibly work.”

While Bender brings a finesse game and skills of a guard to the post.

“I think Ivan [Bender] will surprise a lot of people too this year,” Huerter said. “He has dropped I think 20 pounds this offseason. He’s stepping out and making threes this year. We don’t know what our lineups are going to be yet, but based on the way he’s playing right now, he should get a lot of minutes.”

With four talented post players on the roster, Maryland hopes to use their diverse skill sets to the Terps’ advantage this season. No doubt the guards and wings will still be heavily involved, but expect the Terps frontcourt to take on a more prominent role this year.