OXFORD — Tim Pollitz was offering up a few rules he and his twin brother Eric abide by in order to co-exist in their look-alike world:

• "This is the big one, the serious one. If I date somebody and break up with her, no way does my brother date that girl. And vice versa. That's a distinct rule."

• "We don't wear the same clothing. We keep our look separate. We don't match any more."

• "When we were growing up, playing one-on-one in the driveway, I wasn't allowed to do a lot of posting up on him. I had a little extra weight and I'm older — by two minutes — so I was a little more experienced," he chuckled. "Seriously, though, things would get pretty fierce — fierce enough that Dad had to step in — so I had to play outside."

That said, tonight the Pollitz brothers will prove that rules are made to be broken. Well, at least two of them.

When the Miami RedHawks host the Dayton Flyers at Millett Hall, Tim and Eric will be wearing the same white Miami uniforms trimmed in red.

And you can bet Tim will be posting up on the Flyers. In the high-flying world of college basketball, he's an undersized power forward with an old-school style that gets over-the-top results.

A master of drop steps, ball fakes, working the angles, boxing out, baby hooks, put-backs and the double-team pass, he is one of the most fascinating players to watch in Division I basketball.

A two-time All-Mid-American Conference player, the RedHawks senior — who admitted he's 6-foot-4, not the 6-6 he's listed in the program or the 6-5 that's on the Web site — is averaging 18 points and 7.8 rebounds a game.

Named to the all-tournament team in the Anaheim Classic last weekend, he had 15 points, 16 rebounds, six assists and a blocked shot in the RedHawks' win over South Alabama; 21 points in Miami's four-point loss to Southern Cal and added 15 points in a victory over Mississippi State.

Eric, a backup guard some 30 pounds lighter than Tim's 235, had eight points, two rebounds and a block against South Alabama and another solid game against Mississippi State.

Together they have helped lead the RedHawks — who upset Xavier in the season opener — to a 3-1 start.

Miami coach had vision

The boys' dad, Ken Pollitz — now a Lutheran minister, but once a Division I college basketball player at Missouri and then Valparaiso — had been pastoring in the Toledo area when he was assigned to start a church in Ottawa.

Originally from Chicago — his wife, Linda, is from New York — he said he knew nothing of his new town in rural Putnam County:

"When I first got here — the boys were in kindergarten — I remember going to my first ballgame at the (Ottawa-Glandorf) high school. I'd said, 'Let's go a little early and catch some of the JV game,' but when we got there, we couldn't find a seat. I said, 'What kind of people come to a JV game?'

"Well, I learned right then it's a basketball-crazy county. And they're all pretty good. And I remember going home that first night wondering if my kids would be good enough to play here.

"Of course that was then and this is now."

In between, the boys honed their basketball skills and Ken built his church.

"When Dad first started, we had church services at the high school," Tim said. "In the beginning it was like just the six of us — our parents and the four kids. But Dad went door to door and built the congregation and now there must be 300 members."

Ken said he held church services for six or seven years in the high school auditorium: "The principal was good enough to give us the keys. And I'll be truthful, even after we moved into our own place, I held onto those keys and then instead of the auditorium, we utilized the gym."

On the basketball court, Tim became Putnam County's all-time leading scorer with 1,672 points. Eric scored 1,222 points. They led their team to the 2004 Division II state title and both won all-state honors.

Yet, for all the accolades, only three Division I schools — Wright State, Bowling Green and Miami — offered the undersized players scholarships.

"All the credit for getting them goes to Charlie," Miami assistant Jermaine Henderson said of head coach Charlie Coles. "They didn't come in here quite ready to play, but he's the one who had a vision of what both of them — especially Tim — could be."

Tim learned patience

Mainly because he was looking at it from a seat on the bench, Tim didn't share Coles' vision that first year.

"Early on, I wasn't sure if I fit in this program," he admitted. "I was young. I had Danny Horace, a senior All-MAC player, in front of me and I wasn't getting off the bench. And when you don't play, you get mad at the coach.

"I had to learn to step outside my own ego and realize what was going on. And what I realized was that sophomore year that spot would be open and I was going to work hard to get it."

He said with the help of then-assistant Frankie Smith ("I owe him some real thanks") he learned his low-post maneuvers and won the job.

And along the way, he said he and Eric have learned one more rule of thumb:

"We realize we play different positions and get different opportunities and because of that, each one of us has a different basketball story. But we play hard and believe each time out we can add a little something to that story."

And that's a dictum — like the old girlfriends rule — from which neither will deviate.