EUGENE, Ore. — The words sound funny at first.

“Lesser role.”

It’s what Minyon Moore used to describe her time so far at Oregon, and the senior guard isn’t exactly wrong. For the last three years at USC, Moore had as big of a role as she wanted. Since she averaged 11.7 points and led the Trojans in assists as a freshman, the California native has been an impact player in the Pac-12. Last season, she led USC in rebounding (5.5 per game), minutes (37.2), assists (5.9), steals (2.6) and total points while picking up her second-consecutive first-team Pac-12 defensive nod.

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Since graduating from USC in three years and transferring to Oregon, Moore has seen her numbers dip. She’s playing 10 minutes less per game, her scoring has been cut in half and it’s tough to lead a team in as many statistical categories when there’s someone named Sabrina Ionescu on the roster.

But a lesser role?

Just hours before sitting down to talk inside of Matthew Knight Arena, Moore had been named to her third-consecutive Pac-12 defensive team. Her infusion on the defensive end of the floor has elevated an already elite Oregon team, one that reached a pair of Elite Eights and a Final Four in the last three seasons with the core of this roster. Oregon was already a Ferrari, and maybe Moore is the premium gasoline, the player you add to a roster to help turn something great into something historic.

So yes, Minyon Moore has a lesser role. She offers that up on her own. She knew what it was going to be when she made the difficult decision to leave her three-year home. She knew when she joined a roster of Ducks who were already household names in Eugene. For Moore, it’s a role that might finally help achieve her dreams of not only playing meaningful basketball in March, but winning a national championship.

It’s exactly the role she wanted.

“It went from being a player where everything ran through you and you had to have a crazy game for you to win and coming to a team where everyone is really good and everyone are playmakers,” Moore says. “Knowing your identity and knowing your role really, I think, is what makes most teams successful.”

A couple of days after Oregon’s senior night, a game that capped an 18-1 regular season, Moore took to Twitter. She was feeling nostalgic and wanted to write something about her father.

“My dad,” Moore wrote, “is one of the biggest reasons I’m the competitor I am today. The one who took my sister and I out to go shoot at the park throughout our childhood (even when we DID NOT want to lol).”

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Errol Moore, Minyon’s father, laughs at that part because, well, it’s partially true. He credits some of Minyon’s passion to genetics. He was competitive in baseball, as was his father. Heck, he said his mother was, too. That’s just something that naturally passed on and he noticed it early when Minyon was young and running up and down Bay Area soccer fields chasing the ball.

But Errol is honest: He pushed his daughters hard, especially Minyon.

“The mental side of sports was something I tried to hone in on my daughters. So I would do whatever I could do, almost like a boxing trainer. I guess you could call it skullduggery where you try to use adversity,” Errol said. “I wanted to eliminate excuses. When things got hard, I would try and get into their head and tell them that those things were excuses and you’re going to have to try harder.”

If it was raining outside? The perfect time to go practice.

If it was dark and you couldn’t see the rim? A perfect time to work on muscle memory.

If Mariya was two years older, taller and stronger? Another opportunity to work on fitness by chasing down blocked balls.

That big sister/littler sister relationship was key, Errol said.

“I would tell her sister to not make it easy on her. Block everything. I think that’s where Minyon got her fearlessness from,” Errol said. “I would tell her to beat her up. Don’t let her score. Block her shot. It was always a mental thing.

“I had a method behind the madness.”

And if you look at the path Minyon took to get to Eugene, she’s needed that mental edge. Her career was nearly derailed before it ever really began. She tore her ACL in her left knee before her freshman year of high school, was able to return in time for the postseason and then tore the ACL in her right knee. As Mariya’s college opportunities came into focus, Minyon’s had stalled on her damaged knees.

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The adversity made her better. Ask Minyon about the voracious-type of defense she now plays, and she credits those injuries.

“I had to have a chip on my shoulder,” she says. “I had to be the scrappy player getting all the tough balls and stuff like that.”

She would eventually sign with USC. She would star with USC and she would get to play with her sister in 2018-19 after Mariya transferred from Louisville. It was an amazing three years, Minyon says, but USC never finished better than seventh in the Pac-12 standings and 2019-20 was expected to be another year of transition. Had she stayed at USC, she could have led the team on offense and defense, carving out whatever sort of role she wanted. But more than anything, she wanted to have a role that suited a team. She wanted to win.

When Mariya was honored by USC on senior day last season, Minyon walked out with her and the family. And while the spotlight was on her sister, she also took in the moment for herself. She knew she was transferring at that time. She knew she was about to bet on herself.

The last few months have played out, in Errol’s words, like a movie.

It started with a summer training montage, as Moore pushed herself in the offseason, including beach workouts while on vacation. Then there was the introduction to a new roster that included three of the best players in the sport in Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sabally.

There was the preseason win over Team USA. There was the win at UConn. There was a No. 1 ranking and there was a defense that had been jolted by the addition of Moore.

The Ducks play more full-court defense. They’re able to trap in the half court. She can help double team in the low post and obviously handle herself on the perimeter. Frankly, she’s just a bit of a “nuisance” out there, according to her new coach.

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“We’ve changed our defense because she’s one heck of a rover,” Kelly Graves said last month. “I’m not sure if you’ve played slow-pitch softball, but you have that rover back there. She’s that rover. She can kind of do anything.

“As long as she impacts the game more on the defensive end than she’s giving up on the offensive end, then that’s a net win for us. But she’s actually doing a great job offensively, too.”

A lot of that has to do with her relationship with Ionescu. Having the best player in the sport on her team, Moore has had to change her offensive approach. With USC, there were fewer pick and rolls and more of her just driving into the paint. Now Moore has the ability to create for creative players.

“I really credit Sabrina,” Errol said. “I think Sabrina is such a leader and demands a level of respect and you want to play your best for a player like that. You want to come in and be your best.”

Moore’s handle has allowed Ionescu to play more off ball, and with the No. 2 assist-to-turnover ratio in the country (4.13), Moore has been able to distribute in ways that hadn’t been possible before.

“I love how she’s attacking the basket,” Graves said. “She’s doing a better job probing in transition instead of just kicking the ball ahead. She’s keeping it in her hands, putting some pressure on the defense and then allowing us to run something. I’ve seen great improvement.”

The defense as a whole has seen great improvement. The Ducks are allowing 57.5 points per game, down from 63 last season. Opponents are shooting worse (38 percent down from 40 percent), especially from distance (28 percent from 31 percent), and are forcing two more turnovers per game. The Ducks won their third-consecutive Pac-12 regular season title, are the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament beginning this week and have a legitimate shot at winning the school’s first national title.

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It hasn’t all been easy. Moore said Oregon’s February trip back to USC was “weird.”

Flying to Los Angeles, staying in a hotel outside the Galen Center, using the visiting locker room, not wearing red at UCLA. It was all weird. The Ducks’ 93-67 victory ended with Graves vehemently defending his point guard in a postgame interview after some USC fans chanted “traitor” at Moore. But Moore has no hard feelings toward her former school.

“I was there three years and I graduated,” she said. “I have a lot of time under my belt there and I cherish it. It’s my university. I still love the Trojan Family and I will always be a part of them — and Duck Nation.”

On Sunday, Moore played in her final regular season game at Matthew Knight Arena, and in an era of special games over the last four years, this one managed to stand out. The Oregon crowd got to say thank you to the best era of women’s basketball that’s ever been played around these parts. They said goodbye to Heberd and Sabally and Ionescu, who took the mic after they were honored, looked around and rightly assessed, “Wow, the house that we built.”

But before that, with 4:27 to play, Moore was subbed out and received a standing ovation. Fans hung on every word of hers during her own postgame speech as her family, including, Errol, looked on.

Then on Monday, Moore posted the tribute to her father, ending it by saying her dreams were coming true.

Errol’s are, too. His daughter found her role.

“Man, that meant the world to me. It’s just a culmination of trials and her never quitting,” he said. “It’s just epic. For her to be on this team, she deserves it. She’s just wanted to win. She just wanted to get to March.”

(Top photo: Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)