Kon Knueppel can remember sitting in his room on Duke‘s campus and watching the NBA Draft last June. Before he got to Durham, there was only one question on his mind:
What can I do this summer to show that I deserve to get minutes as a freshman at Duke?
But that night, as he watched one-and-done freshmen Reed Sheppard, Stephon Castle and Rob Dillingham get selected in the top 10, not to mention a Duke one-and-done player in Jared McCain land in the top 20, something hit Knueppel.
“After watching the draft, I said to myself, ‘I want that to be me next year,'” Knueppel told FOX Sports. “I started getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day during the summer except Sundays to work as hard as possible. I really, really enjoy just doing my work and getting out that extra work.”
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This is Knueppel, the 60-year-old stuck in a 19-year-old’s body, termed by his family as an “old soul” with maturity beyond his years. He possesses a relentless passion that matches the standards of Jon Scheyer and Duke in every way and the instincts and talent to help a team in a variety of ways when he’s on the floor.
The oldest of five boys, Knueppel comes from legendary basketball genes in the state of Wisconsin. His father, Kon I, was a four-time All-Lake Michigan Conference selection at Wisconsin Lutheran College, setting the school’s record for career points with 2,064. His mother, Chari Nordgaard Knueppel, enjoyed an even more legendary career, being one of only three players in Green Bay women’s basketball history to have her jersey retired as the Phoenix’s all-time leading scorer with 1,964 career points.
Kon I and Chari knew they were going to get married just 11 days into their relationship, and then came Kon II, who had a special aura to him that even the nurses at Aurora Sinai Medical Center noticed.
“The day he was born, his eyes were bright, wide open and focused,” Chari said. “The nurses said to me, ‘He looks like he’s two months old already with the way that he’s looking at you.’ He was taking everything in from Day 1, just so observant and aware of everybody. He’s been that way his whole life.”
But Knueppel’s love of basketball didn’t come as immediate as his rapid maturation.
“When Kon was 5 and 6 years old, he was not into sports at all,” said Jeff Nordgaard, Knueppel’s uncle on his mom’s side, who was a second-round NBA Draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks in 1996 before playing mostly internationally at the pro level for 13 years. “We are a sports family. But he was really smart, using words in his vocabulary that were beyond what any of the little kids would say.
“We were starting to think he would be a non-athlete, which was totally fine, but still one of those things that surprised us.”
And then, one purchase made by the Knueppel family changed everything:
The Nintendo Wii.
His parents did not previously have a video game console in the house and made it a point to limit those types of things. But without that Wii, Knueppel might’ve never developed the love for the game of basketball he has now.
“I didn’t like basketball before the Wii. I just wasn’t interested in it growing up,” Knueppel said. “But we got that Wii and I started playing NBA Jam and 2K. I fell in love with players. From there, I was passionate to find out as much as I humanly could about NBA players.
“My obsession probably kind of got ridiculous, but that’s how I fell in love with the game. Obviously, when you couple that with great coaches and parents, they really encouraged it. But that Wii changed it all.”
In addition to his love for the Wii, Knueppel also developed a passion for reading about basketball, specifically the “Big Book of Basketball.”
“He read the Big Book of Basketball probably about four times, starting when he was 10 years old,” Chari said. “So then he wanted to talk to people about everything he read. That’s just who he is: an old soul.”
Knueppel took that passion from video games and reading to the court, and it didn’t take long for Norgaard, who coached Knueppel in fourth and fifth grade in the AAU ranks, to understand that his nephew was different.
“At that time, his feel and IQ was that of a high school kid,” Norgaard said of Knueppel. “He was very skilled but not overly impressive physically. His feel, poise and composure, along with his shotmaking, made him stand out above the rest.”
For Knueppel, the thought of playing basketball, especially at the Division I level, had never crossed his mind. He was playing multiple sports and just embracing being a kid, even when he entered the ninth grade at Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
“Even going into my freshman year of high school, I knew I was a good player in the state and in middle school, but I still thought I’d probably end up playing Division III ball at Wisconsin Lutheran College or something,” Knueppel said. “But it became evident pretty early on that I probably could be a low-major to mid-major Division I player. And then, I just kept working and by the end of my freshman year, that summer of AAU is when things took off for me.”
For the proud Milwaukee native, it was a trip to his hometown Marquette University‘s team camp that changed it all.
“I just remember Shaka Smart explaining drills for us, and then we’d jump into a couple of games followed by open practice,” Knueppel said. “When our team was on the court and he was explaining stuff to us, I noticed he was looking at me a lot. Right after that, one of the assistants talked to me and the next day, I got an offer over the phone from them. And then, right after that, I told my parents I had to get a whole lot better because I didn’t think I was that good yet.”
Two more years went by, and with it came offers from Alabama, Wisconsin, Virginia, Notre Dame, USC and more. Being from such a tight-knit family, Knueppel thought long and hard about staying close to home.
“It was a super-tough decision because I did want to stay near home,” Knueppel said. “That was my original thought process — until I visited Duke. I loved how small the campus was. There was such appeal to it, not to mention the staff being great people and being able to play on a great team, so I told myself: ‘If a campus was in Milwaukee, where would I go?’ Ultimately, that was Duke.”
Knueppel’s parents made it clear that the decision was up to him, and in the end, Duke was the clear choice.
“When he told us he wanted to go to Duke, we said ‘Why?’ And he responded: ‘I want to play against the best players every day in practice, because that will make me better. I want to keep it fun and playing on a big stage in every game I play in, with a soldout crowd, is a lot of fun.’
“The third thing was to compete for a national championship. It was that simple, and we were sold. Between playing road games in packed houses, the atmosphere of Cameron Indoor Stadium and when you have to guard Cooper Flagg or try to drive on Khaman Maluach or playing with veterans like Mason Gillis and Sion James, that’s the ultimate test.”
Fast-forward to present day, and Knueppel has enjoyed a standout freshman season. He has helped lead the Blue Devils to a spot in the Final Four, combining for 41 points, nine rebounds and eight assists in wins over Arizona (Sweet 16) and Alabama (Elite Eight). The 6-foot-7 sharpshooting guard has shown why he’s projected to be a top-10 selection in this summer’s NBA Draft, but not everything has looked like a Hollywood movie script for Knueppel this season.
“I was really homesick when I got to Duke,” Knueppel said. “Obviously, I’m really close with my four brothers [Kager, Kinston, Kash and Kid] so I missed them. But you know, I was able to really lean into basketball, and I was in the gym all the time in the summer, leaning into the guys, managers and coaches. Eventually, I got comfortable.”
Knueppel relied upon his classmates: Flagg, Muluach and Darren Harris, along with a sixth-year grad student in Neal Begovic, who Knueppel got to know when he went on a visit to Stanford as a sophomore in high school.
“Neal really helped me,” Knueppel said. “He’s a great friend and got me accustomed to college life. He invited me over every Sunday to watch football. Those types of things really helped.”
Knueppel’s road to being one of the top stars heading into this year’s Final Four has been a fascinating one. He started his college career with 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the floor against Maine. Two games later against Kentucky, he was done in by a 5-for-20 showing in a loss. In Duke’s win over Auburn in early December, he only took three shots. However, in his last 13 games, Knueppel has notched 14-or-more points in all but one of them, the Blue Devils’ first-round tournament win over Mount St. Mary’s.
“I think a lot of it is learning,” Chari said. “I think you’re in a different place in college as a freshman in December than you are in March and April. He had a lot of great people helping him to be aggressive and to play more freely. The staff wants him to do that and I think he’s gotten better and better at that as the year’s gone on.
“I like 5-for-22 better than 2-for-3, personally. But there were definitely ups and downs, ebbs and flows to a college season, but that made him stronger, and now he’s got two games left to let it fly in a Duke uniform.”
Knueppel has been playing his best basketball of the season as late, shooting 11-for-22 from the floor and 4-of-6 from 3-point territory over his last two games. His presence for this Duke team on both ends of the floor is vital because he plays mostly mistake-free basketball while being a solid defensive presence and a better passer than the numbers show.
“This guy’s a stud right here,” Scheyer said of Knueppel on the TBS postgame interview after Duke’s 85-65 East Regional Final win over Alabama. “He’s the ultimate warrior, competitor, and he really carried us throughout tonight.
“Kon’s versatility is huge for us, and his size. He’s able to pass. He’s able to finish. You feel he’s always going to get off a good look because he has great pivots in the paint and great patience.”
That competitive nature comes from growing up in a blue-collar household, with Chari running a daycare since 2006 and Kon I working as a school counselor in the Milwaukee public schools system. Chari does have plans to retire this summer to focus on all of her five boys and their busy basketball schedules.
“We knew we wanted lots of kids and we had five in five and a half years,” Chari said with a laugh. “I certainly wasn’t paying for daycare with how much that was going to cost, so I decided to stay home and run the daycare.”
Even when running that daycare, though, Chari was motivating her children to hit the gym to get more shots up.
“I am really fierce about getting to the gym every day,” Char saidi. “My husband could sometimes be like, ‘Hey, they already had practice. They already got their lift in. Can’t we give them the day off?’ And I’m like, ‘No way!’ We’re going to get at least 100 shots up. We’re for sure doing that.”
That work ethic instilled in the Knueppel boys is what drives them to be great, and in return, has created a dilemma heading into Final Four Week. Kager, 17, and Kinston, 16, both have their opening weekend of AAU ball. While mom thought it would be best for the two boys to join their younger brothers for Saturday’s showdown with Houston, the ever-competitive Kon II stepped in.
“I always say, ‘You don’t miss basketball to watch basketball,’ Knueppel said. “I get it’s the Final Four, but if they want to play the game, I think they should play. I think they’re counting on us to get it done on Saturday, but that’s going to be an absolute battle.”
But Chari and Kon I’s parenting goes beyond teaching their children about having a correct work ethic. Having character and strong moral and ethical qualities is extremely important to Knueppel, who is also very attached to his faith.
“When Duke was playing Louisville in the ACC Tournament, the Louisville strength coach asked all of our managers who was the best player to them? Who was it that treated them the best? And they all said Kon,” Chari said. “After Kon won the ACC Tournament MVP, he texted his dad and I saying, ‘I just wanted to share this little nugget with you.’ And we were more proud about that than the ACC MVP.
“For his dad and I, that’s what really matters to us. That means more than anything that has to do with basketball, that you’re a good Christian and that you treat people the right way.”
As for what lies ahead for Knueppel on the basketball court, it’s a date with a Houston team that enters the Final Four having won 30 of its last 31 games while owning the No. 1-ranked defense in America and holding Tennessee to 15 points in the first half, the fewest by a top-2 seed in NCAA Tournament history.
Knueppel brought up how much he has admired Houston’s DNA over the years.
“They’re machines, man,” Knueppel said. “They play for him. They just play so hard and it’s very, very admirable watching them play. Sometimes it’s not the prettiest offensively, but it doesn’t matter one bit because they play so hard on defense. L.J. Cryer can fill it up and on the boards. They’re unreal.”
Not bad for a scouting report from Knueppel. Not bad for a kid who thought he would be lucky to get a D3 offer as a freshman in high school, only to become a five-star prospect and one of the most sought-after recruits in the nation. Not bad for an old soul who has those same wide eyes born out of Aurora Sinai Hospital set on a national championship.
John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him at @John_Fanta.
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