Brooks Oregon's leader

Aaron Brooks has had enough of the words "supporting" and "cast" in any possible form.

As a freshman point guard last year at Oregon, Brooks, a Franklin High graduate, knew he would be relegated to playing a secondary role — a member of the supporting cast, if you will — with a team filled with seniors, including All-American forward Luke Jackson.

But those plans took a detour when Brooks — in a moment of youthful frustration — lashed out at the backboard support in a January game at UCLA, breaking a hamate bone in his right wrist and spending 10 games on the sideline in a cast.

Asked if he learned a lesson from that impetuous moment, Brooks laughed.

"I just hit myself now because I'm soft," he said.

But Brooks long ago shook off the cast.

And now, in his second season with the Ducks, he has also shed the supporting role to emerge as the unquestioned leader of an Oregon team that harbors legitimate Pac-10 title hopes as it makes its annual visit to Washington for a game at 7 p.m. today at Edmundson Pavilion.

"He's a marquee player in this league," Oregon State coach Jay John said after Brooks scored 24 points to lead the Ducks to a win over the Beavers last Saturday.

Brooks is averaging a team-high 17.5 points, but he has scored 24 or more in three of Oregon's past five games, including a career-high 34 against USC on Dec. 31, and has established himself as one of the best scoring point guards in the Pac-10.

But Brooks hasn't completely shirked his playmaking duties, ranking fifth in the Pac-10 in assists (4.9) and fourth in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Oregon at UW men 7 p.m. today at Edmundson Pavilion Radio: KJR (950 AM). Records: UW 13-2, 3-1 Pac-10; Oregon 10-2, 2-1. Tickets: A limited number remain for each game this weekend, available through gohuskies.com or the box office. Bottom line: This shapes up as one of the most entertaining games of the season given each team's love of a fast pace and the return of Seattle native Aaron Brooks. It's also a key battle for early Pac-10 supremacy. Expect UW, shook up a little after last week's loss to UCLA, to ride the home court to victory. Next game: vs. Oregon State, 7 p.m. Saturday, FSN-TV. Bob Condotta

That Brooks can so easily shift between the roles of playmaker and scorer isn't news to those who watched him at Franklin, where he earned several state player-of-the-year honors two winters ago while leading the Quakers to the 4A state title. After the season, he became just one of six players in state history named to the McDonald's All-American team.

All of that made Brooks one of the top recruiting targets for Lorenzo Romar, who had just taken over as coach at Washington.

Good friends such as Brandon Roy — who remembers playing on a football team as a 9-year-old on which Brooks was the quarterback — tried to sell Brooks on becoming a Husky.

But while Brooks admits a pull to stay home, in the end, it wasn't much of a decision to side with Oregon.

Essentially, Brooks says, he knew he had a chance at immediate playing time — with Luke Ridnour leaving early for the NBA — in a system that fit him well at Oregon. At Washington, with a bevy of other young guards on the roster, his fate might have been a little more uncertain.

"Oh yeah, I always wanted to play at home," Brooks said. "It would have been easy to succumb to peer pressure (and play at UW). But really, you've got to do what's best for you. I don't think the Washington situation was the best for me at the time. Maybe under different circumstances it would have been."

And other than the broken wrist, little has gone wrong for Brooks in Eugene. He earned All-Pac-10 freshman honors last season, and the Ducks were a noticeably better team when he was in the lineup. The injury forced Brooks to sit out both games against the Huskies last season; in an 83-74 loss in Seattle, the Ducks committed a season-high 26 turnovers.

"It really hurt us, particularly up there when their pressure got to us and we started throwing the ball away," Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. "We were really point guard by committee."

Brooks returned in late February to help lead Oregon to the semifinals of the NIT. But any thoughts that he knew it all evaporated quickly last summer when he tried out for the USA Basketball Junior National Team and was cut in favor of Arizona's Mustafa Shakur and Wake Forest's Chris Paul.

"I held my own, but I wasn't satisfied in how I played," Brooks said. "I knew some adjustments had to be made to my game in just learning the game. I've always been able to get by on my speed and quickness and athletic ability. But there's more to it than that."

Kent said the experience "humbled (Brooks). ... He came back with a new drive and commitment to the weight room and was really focused."

The numbers back that up in every way. Brooks is shooting 50 percent from the field, 46 percent from the three-point line — fourth best in the conference and best among point guards — and 85 percent from the free-throw line.

Tonight, however, all Brooks cares about is Washington and his first college game in his hometown.

"There's a lot of hype on this game," Brooks said. "I'm just trying to keep it team-oriented and be ready to play. It was hard last year coming up there and just sitting and watching. I'm trying to make up for that now."

Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com