EUGENE -- There's a face Dillon Brooks makes that in just about any other setting would be unflattering.

Its most recent appearance came Thursday in Tucson, when the Oregon sophomore scored 24 points to lead the Ducks past Arizona, ending the longest home winning streak in the country.

It generally comes with the ball in Brooks' hands as he's charging through the paint.

The face contorts. Brooks' brow furrows as his eyes narrow. His cheeks concave. Lips curl.

It's the face you'd make if you were already angry, then someone forced you to bite a lemon.

For Brooks, it's the face of utter determination.

Over the last month, Brooks has worn that face as he's played basketball as well as anyone in the Pac-12 Conference. With 20-plus points in four of the Ducks' last five games, he has been the prime catalyst for a team with the best record in the conference. Brooks may have started out this season as an overlooked underdog, a player who had a nice freshman year (11. 5 points, 4.9 rebounds) but still seemed a few steps away from taking a leap. But over the last month, Brooks hasn't just turned the Ducks into the team to beat in the conference, he's thrown himself right into the discussion of Pac-12 Player of the Year.

At this rate, the NBA doesn't seem too far off.

It's quite the accomplishment for a 20-year-old kid from Mississauga, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto so far east that Brooks hadn't even heard of Oregon, the state, before his recruitment began.

Brooks' story isn't one of rags to riches, like his favorite player, Dwyane Wade. His mom is a project director at a major Canadian bank, his father a construction worker. Home life was good.

But over the years, Brooks found motivation to get where he is today.For some back in Canada, Brooks' rise at an American college is surprising, but not because of his talent. Growing up, Brooks dealt with learning disabilities that made him struggle with reading and writing. One teacher told him he'd never graduate from high school.

But as Pac-12 defenders are learning this year, it's best not to get in the way when Brooks puts on his face and gets after it.

Oregon forward Dillon Brooks (24) drives past Arizona forward Ryan Anderson during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

The Canada thing is the easiest place to start. Mississauga is a sleepy suburb, just about a 40-minute bus ride from Toronto. Brooks likens it to Eugene, a laid-back town where the people are nice.

There's nothing overtly Canadian about him, at least in the stereotypical sense. He doesn't say "eh", he thinks hockey is slow and boring, and only every once in a while does he refer to college as "university."

Mainly, though, he doesn't play basketball like the stereotypical Canadian.

"Soft," Brooks said the saying goes. "Canadians are soft. For sure. They're very soft. They're not really a basketball country, you know? The biggest stereotype is that we're just soft."

Until the recent influx of high-profile Canadians in the NCAA and NBA, the most notable basketball product was Steve Nash, a point guard from Vancouver. Nash won two NBA MVP awards with the Suns and inspired a generation of Canadian players. He was short, brilliant with the ball and white, the three characteristics that Brooks said are mostly assumed about the sport in his country.

"Mostly playing with smarts, but not very athletic," Brooks says.

Brooks isn't like that. He's 6-foot-6, black and can attack the rim with ferocity. He's rounded, shooting the ball well from outside and is versatile enough to defend every position. Just like the back-to-back No. 1 picks in the NBA draft, Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins, Brooks is another example of braking the stereotypical Canadian mold.

"There's a naturalized chip on a Canadian basketball player's shoulder, whether it is true or not," said Oregon assistant coach Mike Mennenga. "It's changed a bit due to Bennett, Wiggins, Tristan Thompson, but with the young guys coming up now, it's still in their head."

Mennenga first came across Brooks when Brooks was in eighth grade. Mennenga was coaching out east and served as the director of the CIA Bounce program, an elite basketball camp.

Mennenga remembers Brooks as talented, tall and a little overweight. Most notably, he remembers him as driven.

"Back then he was taller than average but a little pudgy guy," Mennenga said. "But the one thing that hasn't changed is his fire for the game. He's extremely motivated and he's focused on winning."

The fire for the game is something his mom, Diane, tried to capitalize on in Brooks' early years, when he struggled to focus in the classroom.

Brooks was diagnosed when he was young with reading and writing disabilities. He struggled at times to comprehend what his teachers were saying and he hated some of the ways they tried to get through to him. Sometimes when the other students were in normal class, Brooks would be assigned a computer to himself in a different room, further alienating himself from the others.

"I didn't want to go in that room," he said. "I would just try and finish tests quicker and it was harder and I got bad grades. I coped."

He said it got so bad that he remembers one teacher telling him he would never graduate from high school.

"I'll always remember that," he said.

But Brooks thrived with more one-on-one attention, especially with things he was interested in. It's part of why Diane pushed him toward organized basketball. He loved the sport and attached to the concepts. Diane would buy him sports magazines to read.

In high school at Father Henry Carr, when it started looking like Brooks had a shot to attend prep school to play basketball in the States, he would take the bus alone the 40 minutes from Mississauga to Toronto to become more independent.

"It's what he always wanted to do," Diane said. "He wanted to go to prep school."

Brooks attended Findlay Prep outside Las Vegas for his final year of high school. It's a place that brings in talent and spits out Division I athletes.

"The culture there was always about getting ready for college," Brooks said. "It was comforting because with all the tutors, I had more time. Without them, I don't think I would have been doing the work."

Oregon forward Dillon Brooks shoots around UNLV forward Stephen Zimmerman Jr. during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

When you ask a guy like Mennenga what's changed for Brooks this year, he said it's the work. It's not that Brooks hadn't put it in before, but here in 2016 the Ducks are finally getting the benefit of the years of Brooks' labor.

At Findlay, Brooks played well enough to attract offers from Duquesne, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland and others. He stood out playing for Team Canada at the FIBA Americas U18 tournament that summer, leading the event with 25.2 points per game and taking home a silver medal.

He chose Oregon that fall and served as a nice addition to a Ducks roster that unexpectedly made the NCAA Tournament. He was fiery, sometimes too much so, but showed the potential to take on a leadership role the next year when Pac-12 Player of the Year Joseph Young would depart.

He went back to work this summer. Brooks again played for Team Canada, earning a silver medal at the Pan American Games - beating Team USA in the semifinals.

He returned to Eugene with a different body, cutting fat and adding muscle.

"A year ago this time to where he is now, he's put a tremendous amount of work in," Oregon coach Dana Altman said. "His diet, his weight workouts, his workouts on the floor, he's just put a lot of time in."

Brooks puts his time in at the gym, utilizes the resources provided for him in the classroom and hounds his coaches constantly.

"He seeks out that one-on-one attention," Mennenga said. "He knows he has to work a little extra harder. He's the one that is calling us up and asking if we can get in the gym. 'Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we get some shots up tonight?'

"We have to unplug Dillon."

The work has provided a sudden a change in perception, not just of Brooks but also of his team. The Ducks are ranked 23rd in the country and are projected by some to earn as high as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Brooks' 16.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game not only prove he's one of the most rounded players in the conference, but his game is making those on the national scale take notice.

Teammates and coaches say he's determined, a player who wants to win so badly he'll do whatever it takes. He says he hasn't put too much thought into what happens after this season, whether he'll enter the draft. He's too busy right now.

"The national attention just motivates me to play harder," he said. "You got to win some games and win some big games. It's all about the team and trying to get rings."

Before the Ducks took off for Arizona, Brooks didn't emphasize how important it was for the Ducks to have a good showing in Arizona. A good showing wasn't important. A win was.

Last year the Wildcats stomped the Ducks three times, most notably a 90-56 embarrassment at the McKale Center, when he was 2-of-10 from the floor. A year later, on Thursday, Brooks hit 10 of his 19 shots, including a dagger of a three-pointer with 4:47 to play to give the Ducks a 72-64 lead.

In the nonconference portion of the schedule, the long-range jumper had gotten away from Brooks. In conference play, he's shooting 7 percentage points better from three-point range.

How?

By putting on that face.

"I worked on that shot a lot," Brooks said after the Ducks beat Arizona. "I was shooting it bad in nonconference (games). I worked on it, worked on it, worked on it, and it paid off tonight."

-- Tyson Alger

talger@oregonian.com

@tysonalger