Terps Buy into Energy Generating Behaviors

After the Maryland men’s basketball defeated the then-No. 20 Florida Gators on Dec. 12 inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, the players crowded around each other in the locker room, ripe with excitement, and began chanting “EGB’s! EGB’s! EGB’s!”.

While it may have seemed like an innocuous chant by a group of basketball players, it means much more to this team. When you see Eric Ayala dive on the floor for a loose ball, that’s an EGB. When you see Donta Scott box out for a big rebound, that’s an EGB. When you see Julian Reese pin the ball against the backboard for a thunderous block, that’s an EGB. 

Those “EGB’s” stand for “Energy Generating Behaviors” and have become a rallying cry for this year's Terps team led by interim head coach Danny Manning.

“It's something that we talk about on a daily basis,” Manning said. “It gives you energy. That's what it is, energy generating behavior. It creates energy and juice for your team, and that's something that you need to have throughout the course of the ballgame. When you're on the bench, all the guys are talking about EGB’s. You come out of the game and you're a little fatigued or you're tired, you can use the EGB's on the bench as a fueling station to get your juices back up. We feel like it helps us all across the board.”

EGB’s can be things that show up in a box score like steals, blocks, and rebounds, but they’re also things like charges, deflections, altered shots, and being verbal on the court. They even apply to players who aren’t in the game as cheering, daps, and teammate callouts all qualify as EGB’s. 

Graduate student Xavier Green personifies this as he’s a player known for doing the dirty work on the court, and he believes that the mindset is helping the team create an identity as they endure a difficult conference schedule. 

“I'm a defensive-oriented guy, so a lot of these EGB’s come down to those types of things,” Green said. “This year, I wanted to be positive and be the impactful energy type of guy because I think that it's going to make our team better. I do all the little things. I try to be an impact player whether I’m scoring in the game or if I’m not even in the game. You want to be impactful in any way.”

The players and coaching staff have gone as far as to begin an internal count of who gets the most EGB’s, and it’s become a healthy competition within the team to see who can get the most in any given day, week, and month. 

This kind of team-wide buy-in has allowed the Terps to bond even more, thanks to the infusion of the EGB’s into the team's culture.

“It just reflects positive energy and it rubs off on everyone,” Green said. “If one guy is not buying into it, he's honestly probably going to end up buying in because everyone around him is bringing the positive energy and keeping things going. That's how the EGB’s work. It creates an energy level that everyone starts to get on board.”

A former NCAA champion and No. 1 NBA draft pick, Manning understands that winning basketball goes far beyond just skill. It takes a commitment in all phases to create habits that translate to the court. 

Manning created EGB’s as a way for his team to become closer and treat the game as something more than just glamor moments.

“A lot of times, you hear coaches say go make a winning play,” Manning said. “And a lot of times, players equate a winning play to dribbling the basketball five, six, or seven times and shooting a double-step back double-pump fake shot that goes in. But EGB’s are a lot of the things that don't show up in the stat sheet. It's being in the right spot defensively. It’s communicating to your teammates. It's getting stops, getting rebounds. This is just another way to break down a winning play. The more EGB's we have, the better chance of success that we have, and our guys see it, and they're really buying into it.”

Another graduate transfer, Simon Wright, has also been singing the praises of EGB’s. In more than 120 games as a college basketball player, he has seen how important the little things can be and how they add up to big things.  

“I've always valued [EGB’s] and seen what they can do on the court. It's really just about being positive,” Wright said. They are making plays that generate energy for your teammates. It's about bringing positive energy wherever you can. We keep track of who has the most EGB’s and so it's kind of a motivator to remember to bring positive energy to pick people up when they may be down.”

Wright has seen sporadic playing time this season, and when he enters the game, he’s not afraid to do a lot of those same little things that Green does. When he’s not on the court, Wright is still trying to bring that steady hand by being the first guy on his feet to cheer on and encourage his teammates. 

With it being his final year as a student-athlete, Wright is trying to instill the right kind of habits into his younger teammates that they can take forth into next season and beyond.

“The role of the bench is to bring positive energy all the time,” Wright said. “We like to say that when somebody comes out of the game, and they sit on the bench, it's like a fueling station. They just feel positive energy. They get filled up for that, and then they're ready to go back into the game. That stuff carries onto the court. There are only five guys on the court, and they need to be connected. They need to be together. They need to be talking. If everybody is bringing that positive energy, it just helps with togetherness and connectedness.”

EGB’s have shaped the identity of this year's Maryland men’s basketball team. While the team isn’t seeing the returns just yet, they are confident that by staying the course and having their energy generate behavior, they can compete with anyone down the final stretch of the season.

“People might get tired of hearing about EGB’s especially when we're not winning games, but that's really just the test to see if you can still be bought into it,” Wright said. “Nothing in life is going to go well all the time. It's about what you can control and what you bring to the table every night.”