As the rest of his teammates warm up before games, Oregon star Dillon Brooks typically retreats to a quiet corner of the locker room, plants himself in a chair and drapes a towel over his head.

Eyes closed and mind clear, Brooks spends the next few minutes getting into a game-ready mindset. It is here that he sheds the laid-back, soft-spoken temperament he exhibits off the court and morphs into college basketball’s notorious instigator.

“It’s the competitiveness I have that brings it out of me,” Brooks said. “When I’m off the court chilling or relaxing, I like to be very composed and calm. When the game starts, I’m so intense and so locked in that nothing can really deter me from what I want. If I acted like I do on the court all the time, people would think I was crazy.”

Striking the proper balance between playing with passion and knowing when to show restraint has been a career-long battle for Brooks. The fiercely competitive junior forward often walks a fine line between emotional and hotheaded, between intense and uncontrollable.

More often than not, Brooks’ attitude brings out the best in Oregon.

An insatiable work ethic and a competitive fire that cannot be doused have fueled his rise from unheralded recruit to Pac-12 player of the year. He sank last-second game-winning jumpers to beat UCLA and Cal this season and averaged more than 20 points the past two months, propelling Oregon to a share of the Pac-12 title and a berth in the Sweet 16.

Of course, Brooks has also gained notoriety a few times for less flattering reasons.

His showboating in the direction of Duke’s bench in last year’s Sweet 16 earned him a postgame scolding from Mike Krzyzewski. His theatrical, stumbling attempt to draw an offensive foul this season against Utah may be the most egregious flop of all time. His ejection for kicking a Washington State player in the groin could have been costly for his team, as could the technical for taunting he received in Oregon’s previous NCAA tournament game against Rhode Island.

The constant yammering and physical play can even get under his teammates’ skin in practice. There aren’t many players in the Oregon locker room who haven’t gone nose-to-nose with Brooks at some point the past few years.

“My freshman year, I was like, ‘This dude’s crazy,'” junior forward Jordan Bell said. “Off the floor, he’s really calm, cool and everyone loves him. On the floor, he’s just really intense and plays with a lot of passion. Some people take it the wrong way, but I’ve been around him for three years so I understand it.”

Those who have known Brooks longest insist he’s a lot tamer than he once was.

The first time Oregon assistant coach Mike Mennenga met Brooks, it was the Canada native’s competitiveness that made more of an impression than his talent.

Mennenga, then the co-director of a youth program in Toronto, was putting some kids through a drill called “bump and grind” in which they had to score at the rim despite heavy contact. Brooks, then a pudgy eighth grader, missed his first attempt at a layup when Mennenga bodychecked him, but he refused to quit.

“It was flat-out war,” Mennenga said. “I make him miss again, he gets the ball and from there, he was like the Tasmanian Devil. We were on the floor. We were scrapping. Eventually he scores the basket, mean mugs me and goes to the back of the line. I remember thinking I didn’t know how good that kid was going to be, but I knew he was wired differently.”

Dillon Brooks and Oregon can reach a second straight Elite Eight with a win over Michigan. (Getty Images) More

Some of Brooks’ unusual aggression likely stemmed from a difficult childhood. During grade school, he often felt isolated from his peers because of a reading and writing disability. His mother urged him to channel his frustration toward basketball and other sports.

Early in Brooks’ career, wanting to win so badly hindered his development.

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