Minor has been a major addition for Beavers

Minor can score, rebound and distribute the ball on offense, and Coach Wayne Tinkle considers him the Beavers’ best defensive guard since Gary Payton II (courtesy OSU sports communications)

CORVALLIS — Coach Wayne Tinkle regards point guard Damarco Minor as a godsend. Little does he know the literal part of that.

Minor wound up at Oregon State in part because, well, of a sign from God.

At least that’s the way he tells it.

Minor hit the transfer portal after playing the past two seasons at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, 4 1/2 hours south of Chicago in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“This is a crazy story, man,” Oregon State’s 6-foot, 190-pound point guard says. “You would probably never believe it.”

Minor explains that he is a religious person.

“I’m a strong believer in Jesus Christ,” he says. “One day I was driving in Edwardsville and I saw a beaver on a curb. For real, man. I had never seen a live beaver, not in a farm or a zoo, nothing. I am thinking, ‘That is not a squirrel.’ It was a beaver. That shook me. I stayed there looking at it for like 30 minutes. I am thinking, ‘That is the hand I am dealing with.’ ”

The Beavers had started the recruiting process with Minor. He saw his beaver sighting as a sign from above. Then he came to Corvallis on a recruiting visit.

“It surpassed all my expectations,” says Minor, who turned 23 on New Year’s Day. “I know how this world is, and how people know money is a key now. They can buy you, and people go places and don’t play.

“I loved it out here. I liked everything about it, especially the coaches. Why would you not go where they treat you like family and offer a great career opportunity? I prayed on it, man. And I couldn’t say no.”

Minor has been the Beavers’ starting point guard from Day One this season, averaging 10 points and 4.7 rebounds while leading the team in assists (5.2) and steals (1.7). He is a catalyst on offense but especially on defense. Tinkle considers him his best defensive guard since Gary Payton II, whose last season at OSU was 2015-16.

“He is a true point guard who distributes and sets up his teammates, which we haven’t had that in awhile,” Tinkle says. “I love his leadership and his toughness.”

Minor is averaging 31.2 minutes per game for the Beavers (16-7 overall, 6-4 in WCC play) heading into Thursday’s 8 p.m. matchup with Washington State at Gill Coliseum, second-only to Michael Rataj at 31.9. Tinkle regards them as his team leaders, and the other players do, too.

“They are the guys we look to the most for leadership,” junior center Parsa Fallah says. “(Minor) is definitely one of the leaders of our team. He comes in every morning, works really hard. He inspires me and our teammates. He is a great person and a great player.”

Minor says he has enjoyed his first six months in Corvallis.

“I like it,” he says. “It’s so much different than Chicago. It’s more quiet. You can focus more. People are so much nicer. It’s like peace out here.”

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Minor’s world is about 180 degrees different than the environment in which he was raised on the south side of the Windy City. He grew up the middle of five children — with two brothers and two sisters — of what became a single-parent household when he was 13 after Damarco’s father, Darrel Minor, was gunned down and killed.

“Things happen,” he says now. “It is part of my journey. You can’t question why.”

His mother, Kamilah Melvin, “was both parents to me,” Demarco says. He and his siblings “had to pretty much figure it out on our own when you don’t have a father figure. I thank God for my friends who came into my life and took me in.”

Melvin worked as a milk carrier. There wasn’t a lot of discretionary income. Was the family poor? Damarco ponders the question for a moment.

“Uh … I mean, I couldn’t tell,” he says. “Mom always made ends meet. I couldn’t tell if we were or we weren’t.”

(Minor, incidentally, is not a Bulls fan. “Not at all,” he says. “I don’t think the Bulls want to win. They need to clean house and start over.”)

Damarco’s nickname is “Polo.” It has been that way, he says, since he was a toddler wearing Polo-brand “onesies.”

“And that ‘Marco Polo’ song (by Bow Wow) came out about that time,” Minor says. “Everybody started calling me ‘Polo.’ Even my teachers called me that in grade school. My classmates and teammates started thinking my real name was Polo.”

The nickname has followed him to Corvallis. He says he doesn’t know how his teammates have picked it up, but Fallah does.

“He told us to call him that,” Fallah says with a smile.

Minor was a two-sport standout at Thornton High, a hard-hitting safety in football.

“I actually thought I was going to go to college for football,” he says. “I really liked defense. But basketball is how the cards played out.”

Minor suffered an eye injury early his senior football season.

“I couldn’t hardly see the whole year,” he says. “It threw me off, even through the basketball season.”

Minor says the injury has abated since then, “but in certain places, at certain angles, I still see double,” he says. “(The eye) still has some trauma to it.”

Asked how good he was in basketball at Thornton, Minor shrugs.

“It is hard to judge, because I didn’t take my craft seriously,” he says. “I didn’t understand the work you needed to put to get the results you want. I was nowhere near what I could have been.”

But it was at Thornton, Minor says, that he learned his defensive ethic.

“Our coach emphasized defense,” he says. “He didn’t care about offensive play that much. Defense has always been within me, but as I went into the world I had to bring it out even more. You can win big on defense.”

Minor had no scholarship offers, so he played a season on a club team at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Then he went to South Suburban College in South Holland, Ill., where Coach John Pigatti had built a powerhouse. As a freshman, Minor led the Bulldogs to a 33-0 season and the NJCAA Division II national championship, averaging 20.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 3.4 steals. He was honored as the National Player of the Year.

“It was crazy,” Minor says. “Coach P, I thank God that I was in his hands. He opened my eyes to a lot of things — not just to being a basketball player but being a man. We had our ups and downs, but I know he loved me.”

Minor transferred to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, a university with an enrollment of 12,000 just north of St. Louis. He had an excellent first season, ranking second on the team in scoring (14.3) while averaging 5.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists. He shot .876 from the free throw line, at one point making a school-record 47 straight gift shots, and was named to the Ohio Valley Conference All-Newcomer Team.

He was even better last season, earning first-team All-OVC honors on a SIEU team that went 17-16 overall and 9-9 in conference play. Minor led the league in foul shooting (.862) and was top 10 in scoring (15.5, ninth), rebounds (8.5, fifth) and assists (3.1, seventh).

Minor says he grew as “a basketball player and a leader” as starting point guard at SIEU under Coach Brian Barone.

“You have to think for everybody on the court,” he says. “You have to make sure everybody else has to come to play. You have to understand how to reach people. Some people don’t respond to tough love. You can’t scream at ‘em. You have to find a way to talk to them. That was huge learning that, and just facing adversity. I felt like at SIEU we had a lot of downs, and people looked at me to pick them up, and I didn’t quite know why. It took awhile to understand who I was and my purpose.”

Minor says he was looking for a different level of play, a new opportunity, when Oregon State came calling. Tinkle opened the door, and Minor walked in.

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Damarco “Polo” Minor has been a spark that gets Oregon State going on both sides of the ball (courtesy OSU sports communications)

Tinkle was looking for an experienced college veteran from the portal to fill the point guard role. Minor, now 23, was the perfect fit.

“Polo plays both ends, really defends, especially man on the ball, and sets the tone,” Tinkle says. “He doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves for that.”

Minor is a one-man press-breaker bringing the ball upcourt, rarely turning the ball over against pressure. He is strong and quick and savvy at penetration and setting up teammates. He is also a remarkably good rebounder for a point guard his size.

“Some guys don’t want to get dirty,” he says. “They are pretty. They want to score. They want the ‘rah rah’ stats; they don’t want the grit. I like to go in and help our bigs. They are playing against guys who are 7 feet and 265. They have to box ‘em out, and that’s a tough task. Certain games, I try to get in there and do what I can to help.”

Minor’s weakness is consistency with his shot, especially from distance. He is shooting .408 from the field, .312 from 3-point range and .811 from the foul line.

“Polo has been a scorer in the past, but it’s a little different at this level,” Tinkle says. “We have told him, ‘There are games when you might have six, seven points, but you will have eight assists, and with your defense, we’re going to win.’ And there are games where he has 18, 19 points and has had to score.

“He is good from 14 to 18 feet when he is on balance. If he makes even one ‘3’ a game, the defense can’t go under every ball screen, and he is so good in the pick-and-roll game. I’ll say this: he is never intimidated. His toughness is something we have lacked.”

Minor is what I call a “money player.” When the chips are down, he becomes a better shooter. He has hit some big 3’s and scored some big baskets in clutch moments this season for the Beavers. Like Rataj, he is not afraid to take the big shot. In tight games, he has come through more often than not.

“I would rather be a better shooter, but I’m not worried about the numbers,” Minor says. “Coach gives me the keys. He lets me do a lot. And I know in turn he expects me to make that big shot in those moments. That’s my role on the team.”

Not his biggest role, Fallah says.

“He can score, too, but we need him to be a playmaker,” the OSU center says. “He is willing to do whatever the team needs him to do. At this point, we need his ability to make plays for others.”

Rataj and Minor emerged early as the team leaders.

“Me and Mike definitely have proved to the guys with our voice and our actions we are willing to take leadership of the ship, to dive into the current and take whatever comes with it,” Minor says. “We will take the blame before they do. I would rather put it on me than them, because I know I can take it.”

Minor says he appreciates his teammates because “they allow me to be myself.”

“They accept me for who I am,” he says. “Sometimes I come off as too aggressive, but they understand me. They are very patient with me. I’m a passionate guy. I won’t let my teammates settle, and the guys let me be that way.

“They lift me up when I feel weak. There’s nothing more than you want from teammates. Off the court, they are great people. On the court, they are even better. They don’t ever let me hang my head. They keep me confident and make me look good.”

Those teammates seem to appreciate him, too.

“The guys flock to him,” Tinkle says. “He is a very positive influence.”

“There are some days he pushes us to keep going; then some days, we push him,” Fallah says. “We for sure need a person like him on the team.”

“The way he approaches practice and games, I really enjoy playing with him,” says Liutauras Lelevicius, the 6-7 sophomore guard from Lithuania. “He pushes everybody around him. He can do whatever you need. He can distribute the ball, he can score, rebound. It is good to have him around. A great locker room guy.”

Asked about Minor’s personality on the court, Lelevicius smiles.

“At that moment, he’s quite hot,” he says. “Sometimes you have teammates who are a little calmer, not like him. But he is like this spark for us. He ignites the energy and helps us get going from the start.”

Sophomore Josiah Lake II is Minor’s understudy, and the two work hand in hand.

“I look up to him,” Lake says. “He has been a great role model for me to learn from. The first day of camp, he came up and introduced himself, told me about his background, his story, how he is a little bit of an underdog, same as me. We click like that.

“We want to see each other succeed. We have a tight connection. We bond. We talk. We have a lot of emotion throughout the game. Me learning from him and getting to play with him is a great experience. I think it’s that way for both of us. We learn from each other.”

Minor seems to have a special relationship with Tinkle.

“He is an amazing guy,” Minor says. “Not too many coaches in the position he is in have the heart he has. I really do thank God every day that I am in his hands. He has a genuine heart.

“In coaches nowadays, it is usually based on what you do for them. He is not that type of guy. He focuses more on not what you do for him, but what he can do for you. Even if he cusses you out, before you leave that gym, he is going to let you know he still loves you. That speaks volumes for him as a man.”

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Minor lives by himself in an apartment about 10 minutes from campus. A psychology major, he has somehow negotiated an academic roller coaster at four different schools to a point where he is on target to graduate spring term.

“I have to pass this French class, though,” he says with a smile. “Man, it’s tough.”

With the NCAA new eligibility rules regarding JC participation, Tinkle says Oregon State will appeal on Minor’s behalf.

“We are going try to get a waiver for another season,” the coach says.

When I ask Minor about it, he says, “they already got it. It is a blessing. I thought this was going to be my last year, then (NCAA officials) come out and say I got another year. I have to take advantage of it.”

Told of Minor’s comments, Tinkle says he is not sure where Minor’s eligibility for next season stands.

For now, all focus is on this season.

“I feel like we are better than what our record shows,” Minor says. “But overall, the season is going great.”

Not so great was a 98-60 thumping at Gonzaga the last time out. The Zags were lying in wait after the Beavers handed them a 97-89 defeat in overtime at Gill on Jan. 16.

“We won’t dwell on it, but you can’t ignore it,” Minor says. “We knocked them out of the top 25. They were going to come out ready. When you are going into that kind of environment … let’s just say it was a learning experience. For us to be a great team, we need to learn from these things to take another step forward.”

The Beavers are 13-1 at home but 1-5 on the road.

“I have no excuse for that,” Minor says. “Teams come in here, they have to face us and the crowd. We have to come to an understanding that when we go on the road, it’s just us. As you go through life, there are certain things that you won’t get better at unless you fail at it first. You have to fail over and over again until you finally say, ‘OK, we’re not doing that anymore.’ ”

Minor says he doesn’t want to think about what could happen with the rest of the Beavers’ season. He says his focus is on this week’s home games against Wazoo and WCC leader Saint Mary’s.

“You have to worry about taking care of things right now,” he says. “The team we have, we could do something big. But if we look too far ahead, we could overlook key details that we need to take care of to get there.”

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