Rex Pflueger Balances Efficiency With Aggressiveness At Notre Dame

Balancing the risk-reward factors in athletics — or investments, relationships, daily business, etc. — can be a tricky proposition.

Are you content with your business being relatively safe with marginal profits, or do you roll the dice with a proposition that could make or break it? Will a guy ask out the most gorgeous gal in the club, or does he risk his ego being trampled on while getting shot down in front of everyone?

That’s why for Notre Dame sophomore guard Rex Pflueger, his unique status of having played 210 minutes this season (19.1 per game) without committing a turnover can be viewed as a double-edged sword. In fact, when Pflueger committed a couple of turnovers at a recent practice, Fighting Irish head coach Mike Brey felt relieved because it came while he was in an attacking, aggressive mode.

“I happened to run into the parents and him after the [Dec. 19] Colgate game and I said, ‘Hey, first play of the game against St. Peter’s [Dec. 28], I want you to just travel so we break the ice,’ ” Brey said. “And then on a serious note I said, ‘Rex, you cannot be safe because of this thing.’ And I don’t think he has been.

“He still drives … he’s had a couple in practice, he threw a couple away last night and I was like, ‘Alright, he’s still being aggressive.’ We need [him] borderline reckless sometimes with his drives and playmaking. He gets it. He knows how he has to play.”

Heralded primarily as a fierce defensive stopper, a la 1976-80 Irish guard Bill Hanzlik, the rangy 6-6 Pflueger’s game is built around playing fearlessly and taking the fight to the opposition. At the same time, he prides himself on smart basketball acumen. That’s how he became the 2015 Southern California Player of the Year at powerful Mater Dei High. A year earlier, he led the Monarchs to the MaxPreps national title while posting a 35-0 record as a junior captain.

“I don’t want that to make me timid,” said Pflueger of his no-turnover streak while handing out a fifth-best 20 assists and still converting .450 from three-point range (9-of-20). “I want to still be aggressive on offense and I don’t want to not make a play because I’m afraid of a turnover. It’s a cool streak and everything, but I’m really looking to just keep making plays — and if I don’t make any turnovers, that’s great. It all comes down to I want to make the best plays for my team.

“It comes down to confidence and knowing you have to make the right play. The aggressive play is good once in a while, and it’s also a great play to make the smart play. It’s just first rotating the ball or making the right cut. It then becomes the aggressive play when you drive to the hole, get two or three guys around you and then kick it out. It’s more so knowing myself and knowing what to do when I have the ball in my hands.”

The efficiency and high basketball IQ hardly has been unique under the Brey regime. The No. 24-ranked Irish annually rank among the nation’s leaders in effectiveness on offense with their passing/ball movement. They currently lead the nation in assists-to-turnovers ratio (228-106 for a 2.15 figure, well ahead of No. 2 UCLA’s 1.91) and fewest turnovers per game (8.8, just ahead of ACC foe Virginia’s 9.0).

Pflueger credits Brey for becoming a product of what is preached daily in practice.

“When I first came into the program, Coach really made it an ideal thing for me that if I wanted to play, I had to take care of the ball,” said Pflueger, who in a pinch would be confident at handling point guard duties. “So I’ve really made that one of my trademarks to make sure I’m great with the ball all the time. I want to be efficient with it always, because I knew that was the way I was going to get the most playing time.”

Pflueger had only 10 turnovers last season as a freshman while playing 398 minutes, or 13.3 per game. Still, he emphasizes not being robotic on the court or being paralyzed with fear about making an error.

“When you’re playing the game, you can’t just stop and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to make sure I don’t turn the ball over,’ ” he said. “It’s going to happen in the flow, but it comes down to being consistently good with the ball, and that comes with a lot of practice.”

----

• Talk about it inside Rockne's Roundtable

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.

• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_CoachD,

@BGI_MattJones, @BGI_DMcKinney and @BGI_CoreyBodden.

• Like us on Facebook