COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Riding the momentum of three straight wins at home, No. 12 Maryland (13-2, 3-1 Big Ten) will take its show on the road Jan. 10 and look to push its winning streak to four as the Terps travel to Iowa City to take on an Iowa (10-5, 1-3) team that has its back against the wall following two consecutive losses in conference play within the last week.

While the Terps have enjoyed plenty of success defending their home turf this season with a perfect 10-0 mark at Xfinity Center, head coach Mark Turgeon’s team is still looking for its first road win of its 2019-20 campaign. A trip to Carver Hawkeye Arena will be Maryland’s next opportunity to get the road monkey off its back.

“We need to win on the road,” Turgeon said Thursday. “We need to play well on the road. We haven’t done that and hopefully our guys are ready to do it. We’ve stepped up our game at home. Now it’s time for us to step it up on the road. It’s more about that. It’s more about us going out on the road, handling the environment, handling things that happen on the road and being mature enough to play well.”

Although Iowa lost its last two outings on the road against Penn State and Nebraska, the Hawkeyes have solid early-season wins this year over Texas Tech (neutral), Syracuse (away), Minnesota (home), Iowa State (away), and Cincinnati (neutral).

While Turgeon knows what his team must do in order to take the next step as one of the Big Ten’s elite teams this season, the Terps’ lead man knows it’s a task that will be much easier said than done against a desperate Iowa squad in Iowa City.

“They’re really good and they’re really good at home,” Turgeon said of the Hawkeyes. “Fran (McCaffery) is a terrific coach. He gives them freedom. They get out and move, constant movement. They recruit shooters. They recruit scorers. They have a good low-post game. Defense is supposed to travel. I’m hoping our defense travels to Iowa City and plays well on Friday.”

Maryland’s defense ranks seventh nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom, and while the Terps are coming off of back-to-back games in which they’ve slowed two of the Big Ten’s best in Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana) and Kaleb Wesson (Ohio State), their toughest task guarding an individual player very well could come Friday night when they attempt to defend Washington, D.C., native and the league’s leading scorer (22.1 points per game), Luka Garza.

“It’s really great to see,” Turgeon said of the season Garza has had so far. “We’ve kind of watched him grow up in the area and he’s playing at a high level. He’s a hard matchup because he works so hard. He posts hard. He’s got a great shot-fake, step-throughs, all kinds of moves, left hand, right hand; plus he can shoot the three. So he’s a tough guard. We just came off of a really tough guard in Kaleb Wesson. It’s going to take our whole group to guard him. They’re like Ohio State. They have really good shooters around him too. So he’s a terrific player. He’s just playing with great confidence and we have to have great team defense on him.”

While it will take multiple Terps to neutralize Garza on Friday, the Terps will likely turn to their leader, senior point guard Anthony Cowan Jr. for some insight into Garza’s game.

Like Garza, Cowan played his high school basketball in Washington, D.C. and has seen Garza evolve into not only one of the best bigs in the conference, but in the entire country.

“I’ve seen a little bit of him in high school, but he’s definitely gotten better,” Cowan said. “You can tell he’s definitely been in the gym putting in work. So I’m happy for him, but we have to be ready to play tomorrow. They have a lot of good shooters. They have a lot of good players. But I think their offense is really ran around Luka, so we just have to make sure we key in on him.”

Turgeon plans to throw multiple defenders at the 6-foot-11, 260-pound junior center on Friday night, but he’ll have to match up his best perimeter defender Darryl Morsell with Hawkeyes sharpshooter Joe Wieskamp, who’s averaging 14.0 points and 5.9 rebounds per game for Iowa.

“[Wieskamp] was a McDonald’s All-American, so he’s a great player,” Turgeon said. “He’s very confident and he can shoot the three. He has a quick release. He’s great in transition. He’s also getting all the way to the rim. He’s a smart player. He gets a shoulder on you and it’s hard to get around him. It’s a tough challenge for Darryl. Darryl is going to step up and guard him and play well.”

Iowa is known as an up-tempo team, which could play into the Terps’ favor, as Maryland has played some of its best ball in transition this season.

Answering its first two losses of the season with three straight wins, the Terps are feeling good about themselves as they travel across the country and will be a confident bunch heading into Friday night’s Big Ten showdown.

“I think these last couple of practices, last couple of games just got our confidence up and got us ready to play on the road,” Cowan said.

Tip-off in Iowa City between Maryland and Iowa is scheduled for 7 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on the Maryland Radio Sports Network and televised on FS1.