Oregon will go as far as emotional leader Dillon Brooks takes it

— -- EUGENE, Ore. -- Growing up, Dillon Brooks spent every day in the summer playing pickup basketball at the Mississauga, Ontario, YMCA. His friends joked that everyone in the city -- even someone with their eyes closed -- could've known whether Brooks was on the floor.

He was always the one yelling, the one cursing, the one arguing every call. He was taller than everyone else his age, but thinner than his opponents who were typically six years his senior. And when they'd tell him to show some respect, he would snap back at them with his familiar retort.

"I don't give a damn," he'd say. "Not. A. Damn."

And when he lost, the all-too-recognizable zip of a basketball being punted across the gym (from Brooks's foot) could be heard throughout the Y. On more than one occasion, verbal fights broke out. And more than once, it got physical.

But then Brooks would grab another ball from the rack and smack it on the floor at the top of the key.

"Check up again," he would yell at his then-enemies, who would -- once the game was over -- return to being his best friends. "Check up right now. I'm not coming off this court."?

"That's the one thing about Dillon that everyone knows," said Allan Anderson, one of those guys six years Brooks' senior who played him every day at the YMCA. "His passion."

Passion. That's the word Brooks and all of his friends use to describe that side of him that comes out on the court.

That passion is what Brooks has aimed to control this season as he has stepped into the main leadership role for the Oregon Ducks?(21-3), who?moved up to No. 5 in the AP poll this week after a convincing win over Arizona.

It's a passion that he'll need to continue to harness during the next week as the Ducks prepare for Thursday's road trip to No. 10 UCLA (10 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App) before travelling to Southern California this weekend.

"I've got an attitude that I feel like I'm one of the best players on the floor," Brooks said. "It's more of a passion. With that passion comes aggressiveness. That can come off in different ways. ... I've been trying to find ways to refocus myself."

Oregon fans are familiar with this "passionate" side of Brooks.

There was that kick (which Brooks says was accidental) to the groin of Washington State's? Josh Hawkinson, which came when the Ducks were trailing by one and he had just missed a bunny in the lane. He was assessed a flagrant foul 2.

There was the humorous flop he tried for against Utah a few weeks ago that garnered national attention.

Last season, after blocking a shot against Colorado, Brooks received a technical foul?for extracurricular talking, which refs had warned him about time and time again.

He even drew the ire of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski when he launched a 3-pointer with a comfortable lead in the waning seconds of a Sweet 16 win against the Blue Devils. Krzyzewski later apologized, and Oregon coach Dana Altman said he gave Brooks the green light. ?

Brooks might've been able to get away with the kicking and flopping at the Mississauga YMCA, but it doesn't fly as well on national television.

"I've been trying to work on those things," he said. "It's a selfish play."

And that's the lesson he has chipped away at in the past two seasons as Oregon went from a depleted roster two seasons ago to an Elite Eight group last year to a national title contender this season.

But he knows that the team depends on him as a leader, and that means controlling his passionate (or selfish) plays.

That has come easier this season after meeting with a sports psychologist who suggested positive self-talk for Brooks when he felt the urge to talk back to refs or talk trash to other players. In those moments, he takes a deep inhale, a hard exhale and tells himself, "Cool."

When Lonzo Ball put up an easy lay-in to give the Bruins a four-point lead in the final 30 seconds the last time UCLA and Oregon played? (Before Brooks went on to hit a buzzer-beating winner, of course.)

Inhale. Exhale. Cool.

When the Ducks kept sending Colorado to the free throw line in the final minutes of their only Pac-12 loss this season?

Inhale. Exhale. Cool.

When he faced off against? Allonzo Trier?-- whom Brooks had played against on the AAU scene as a kid and who had always received more national recruiting attention, something that got under Brooks' skin -- last weekend in Eugene, Oregon?

Inhale. Exhale. Cool.

It's all a part of the process of Brooks growing up this season -- learning to control that passion, being more mature. All a part of the process of why this team could very well end up in Phoenix in April.

Ask him what he's most proud of this season, and it's not the 20-point games or the winning shots.

It's the fact that he hasn't received a technical foul (though he did receive a flagrant 2 for the Washington State incident).

"I've taken the game a lot more seriously, and I'm trying to be more professional," he said.

That means being every basketball clich? in the book: the first to show up and the last to leave. But to Brooks, it also means making sure his rent is paid early, that the groceries are always fresh and that his new puppy -- a Rottweiler named Zeus -- is walked every morning by 8 a.m. and doesn't have access to any of Brooks' sneakers (read: chew toys).

All of this is a part of streamlining his passion to be more productive. Even Zeus has helped him grow up and reflect.

"He's kind of like me -- likes to chill, lay around," Brooks said. "But he is a complainer."

Maybe Zeus will grow out of it. Just like someone else is trying to do.