Maryland men’s basketball is making a living out of running. Or to be more specific, runs.

With spurts of 10-0, 10-0 and 16-0 in Tuesday night’s 111-57 frolic over visiting Saint Francis at Xfinity Center in College Park, the Terps have enjoyed runs of at least 10-0 18 times this season. They have exceeded last year’s total of 16 and are nearing the 2022-23 mark of 27 with 20 games left in the regular season.

Maryland (9-2) has benefitted from those spurts, racking up its sixth victory of 30 points or more to match the most in a season since the 2002-03 squad finished with six such wins. Coach Kevin Willard said the key to fueling those runs has been an offense that executes to set up the team’s full- and half-court press packages.

“We’re able to consecutively press,” he said. “When you score and you can get after it and keep after it and get teams to take rushed shots and maybe get a turnover and you get your tempo going and get up the floor, you’re going to have those runs. We couldn’t have those runs last year because we couldn’t score. So when you can’t score, you can’t press. It’s really hard to have those scoring runs when you can’t force the tempo we want to play with. So when we’re making shots and we’re able to get the ball inside and score, we’re able to force the tempo that we want to force.”

Here are three observations from Tuesday’s win:

After 3-point nightmares, the offense is beginning to live the dream: After a slow start that involved three consecutive missed shots behind the 3-point line, Maryland fifth-year senior point guard Jayhlon Young’s long-range attempt midway through the first half ignited a 15 of 23 barrage for the remainder of the game. The 3-point total ranked as the second-most in program history, trailing only the 17 3-pointers registered in a 101-50 rout of Missouri-Kansas City on Dec. 13, 2006.

Before the game, Selton Miguel and his teammates seemingly had a premonition about their impending success.

“In warmups, we were trying to ask about the record about how many 3s [in a game] we can hit, and it was close,” said the graduate student small forward, who went 4 of 6 from deep. “I think we hit 15, and the record is 17. I think we’re just going to keep getting better.”

With 100 made 3-pointers so far, the Terps are almost halfway to equaling last year’s total of 201. They are on pace to sink 281 3-pointers, which would eclipse the school record of 272 set in 33 games in 2016-17.

The offense’s .364 efficiency rate from long range ranks fifth in the Big Ten but 84th in the country. Willard chalked up the discrepancy to the players settling for low-percentage shots when the outcomes of games have been long decided.

“When we go back as a staff, we were almost up to 42% during live ball, technically real game time,” he said. “We’ve really hurt ourselves from an analytic standpoint in the last six minutes of some of these games. I think these guys understand how important analytics are now and realize what every shot means. … So I think these guys are starting to understand a little bit that for the main part, those five guys, six, seven guys that are going to be out there, the ball is going to eventually come back to you. Just be patient and let’s get good possessions every time.”

Still, Maryland’s identity is built on the defense: As remarkably as the Terps played, they found themselves going toe-to-toe with a Red Flash opponent that didn’t seem cowed by Maryland’s size, talent or pedigree. In fact, Saint Francis used an 8-0 run to assume a 21-17 lead midway through the first half.

After that though, Maryland surrendered just eight points in the final 9:28, and the Red Flash (4-8) missed 10 of 14 shots, had another blocked by freshman center Derik Queen and committed four turnovers.

Sophomore shooting guard Rodney Rice said he and his teammates know that much of their foundation is built on the defense.

“That was good for us,” he said. “We started out slow. We just figured we’ve got to pick it up and get after them on the defensive end. I think that allowed us to get going on the offensive end.”

Willard had another theory, pointing to the team’s nine-day layoff since an 83-78 setback at No. 16 Purdue on Dec. 8. Although the coaching staff put the players through practice and addressed some details, he said he wasn’t surprised when the Terps labored initially against Saint Francis.

“We were a little gassed, to be honest with you,” he said. “We hadn’t played a game in nine days. That’s a long break. So just getting back into game mode, I think guys just picked it up and saw what was going on and saw it was time to pick up our defensive intensity and just kind of get back into the rhythm a little bit. I kind of knew we were going to start off bad just because we hadn’t played a game since last Sunday. So it was just a little bit about being patient and letting guys kind of just get back into the flow of the game.”

Overlook Selton Miguel at your own risk: Entering the game against Saint Francis, four of the five starters had finished as Maryland’s high scorer. Queen, a Baltimore resident, led with five such performances, and he was followed by junior point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie (two), senior power forward Julian Reese (two) and Rice (one).

The only starter who had yet to enjoy that honor was Miguel — until Tuesday when he rang up a game-high 24 points, including 17 in the first half. Miguel, a transfer, had played with Kansas State for two years, South Florida for another two and the Angolan national team at the Summer Olympics in Paris. Now with his third collegiate team in five seasons, Miguel acknowledged that he is developing a cohesion with what Willard expects of him.

“I’ve had four head coaches in five years,” he said. “Just trying to figure it out and just be me. I have a lot of conversations with Coach Willard. I told him I had a bad start, but at the same time, just got to keep going every day and just be humble and take what God gives me.”

Since not scoring in a 76-75 win against Villanova on Nov. 24, Miguel has averaged 14.8 points, 2.2 assists and two rebounds in his past five starts. This is the version of Miguel that Willard anticipated.

“This is what we saw on film with him at South Florida,” he said. “It took him a little bit of time at South Florida to get going. … For it to magically happen right away, it’s not going to happen sometimes for a fifth-year guy.

“To Selton’s credit, he has stayed extremely positive. His work ethic has been great, and you’re just seeing the result now of him just getting a little bit more comfortable with the things we’re doing.”

Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.