When Tod Kowalczyk’s blue-chip nephew signed to play basketball at Duke last year, the Toledo coach naturally went about scheduling a game against the Blue Devils.
It was no problem.
The timing didn’t work out this season, but — as long as Kon Knueppel was back at Duke — Toledo would visit Cameron Indoor Stadium next season.
Well …
About that.
If you’ve watched Knueppel or Duke at all during their romp through this NCAA tournament, you probably have a good idea the Blue Devils’ freshman superstar — the other one — will not be running it back.
The sharpshooter from Milwaukee is projected as a top-10 pick in this year’s NBA draft.
“Hopefully Duke will still play us,” Kowalczyk said, “but we will see.”
Meantime, he will savor the thrill of the moment, which might well prove a shining one for Kneuppel.
Kowalczyk, his wife, Julie, and their teenage children, Race and Rose, are headed to the Final Four, where a familiar destination will have a surreal feel this weekend in San Antonio.
With Cooper Flagg and Knueppel leading a loaded — but disorientingly likeable — basketball Death Star, the top-seeded Blue Devils (35-3) are the odds-on favorite to win the national championship.
“It’s been so much fun for all of us,” Julie said. “We’re just so happy for Kon.”
For those unfamiliar with the connection, Knueppel is the son of Julie’s sister, Chari Nordgaard Knueppel, who was a basketball star herself.
To say Kon was born into a hoops family would be like calling the ocean just a little wet.
His mom, Chari, is the all-time leading scorer at Wisconsin-Green Bay. His dad, Kon, is the second all-time leading scorer at Division III Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee. And his uncle, Jeff Nordgaard, starred at Wisconsin-Green Bay and was a second-round draft pick by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Kon II is the oldest of Kon and Chari’s five children, followed by Kager (yes, think of the term for a basketball player), Kinston, Kash, and Kid.
The four younger boys — in seventh through 10th grade — all play, too, and they have the perfect role model in their brother, who has just kept getting better.
Of course, no one could have seen this coming.
When Knueppel received his first Division I scholarship offer as a prep sophomore — from none other than Toledo — he was overjoyed.
“We were so thrilled,” Chari said. “It was like, ‘Wow, we don’t have to pay for college.’”
That it was UT made it all the sweeter.
“We’d been to so many games over the years,” Chari said. “The run Tod has been on there is remarkable.”
“We thought at that time he was a really good player,” Kowalczyk said, “and we wanted to be the first school in there.”
But, suffice to say, they would not be the last.
Knueppel became one of the top recruits in the nation as a junior — the ninth overall prospect in the 2024 class, per Rivals.com — and led Wisconsin Lutheran High to a perfect season and a state championship his senior year.
Now, here he is, a household hoops name, submitting a tour-de-force debut season for powerhouse Duke.
Flip on a game, and you see what makes Knueppel so special.
It’s everything.
The 6-foot-7, 217-pound shooting guard is as skilled as he is smart and tough, and, while not the fleetest of foot, he has raced to the top of NBA draft boards just the same.
He averages 14.4 points per game, flirts with membership in the velvet-roped 50-40-90 club — 48 percent field goal percentage, 40 percent 3-point percentage, 91 percent free-throw percentage — and plays with a contagious joy and energy, unofficially leading the country in floor burns.
(How contagious? Two years ago, Race Kowalczyk, a D-I prospect at St. John’s Jesuit, saw the rewards of his cousin’s work ethic and began training three times a day, from before dawn at the Titan Dome to after dark at Savage Arena, with practice in between. Race kept improving — he just enjoyed an all-state junior season — but not before sustaining a stress fracture. “It was probably too much," Tod said.)
Anyway …
As a fan as much as an uncle, Tod could not be more impressed. Neither could the other Coach K.
“Outside of Flagg, the next best player in the [ACC] is Kon Knueppel,” former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said on his Sirius XM radio show. “I really love that kid. His ability to get the loose ball, grab offensive rebounds, or get on the floor is incredible. He can really shoot it, he's tough, plays defense.”
Even more, Knueppel has shown a flair for the big stage, his game rising with the stakes. He was the MVP of the ACC tournament and led Duke with 21 points and five assists in its Elite Eight rout of Alabama.
No one in his cheering section or beyond will be surprised if one more shining moment awaits in San Antonio.
“I remember when we brought Race home from the hospital and Kon II was there in his little footie pajamas,” said Julie Kowalczyk, who met Tod in Green Bay, where he got his first head coaching job in 2002. “Just to see him now reaching all these goals and having so much success, it's so much to watch. He’s such a good kid, too.”
As for that possible Toledo game at Duke, stay tuned.
If it doesn’t happen next season, remember there are four more Knueppel boys on the way. Toledo recently became the first school to offer Kager, a prep sophomore.
“Maybe,” Chari said with a laugh, “another one of our kids can get to Duke, and we can make that game happen.”
First Published April 2, 2025, 9:17 p.m.
