Noie: Notre Dame's Rex Pflueger goes with more serious hoops approach

You step into the gym for the first summer pickup session for the Notre Dame men’s basketball team, do a mental rundown of the roster and are struck by the sight of someone you should recognize but don’t.

Who is that guy? The one right there in The Pit just off the free throw line. He looks familiar…. Still, nothing clicks. Then the form of his jumper offers an answer, but is that really senior guard Rex Pflueger? He looks so different. So….different.

A few hours up the freeway from Pflueger’s home in Dana Point, Calif., sits a place where looks are everything. For the first three years of his collegiate career, Pflueger cultivated that textbook Hollywood image of a Southern California kid. He was the surfer guy. The way he wore his hair, with just the right amount of product mixed in before games to give it that extra style. His easy-going disposition. His ever-present smile and clean-shaven face. The dude just chilled.

But a guy who once looked ready to catch the next wave rolling in off the Pacific Ocean now looks like someone ready to go in a back-alley brawl. Or late night along Eddy Street Commons.

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