Thanks in part to Kon Knueppel’s shooting prowess, the Duke basketball squad dismantled the Yellow Jackets.
Entering the Duke basketball team’s 82-56 road victory over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Saturday afternoon, heralded freshman guard/forward Kon Knueppel had knocked down only seven of his 30 attempts from 3-point land between the Blue Devils’ previous six outings. His 3-point percentage, a highlight following his 7-for-14 clip across the team’s first two games of the season, had fallen to 32.3.
Against high-major opponents, Knueppel was shooting only 6-for-32 beyond the arc (18.8 percent). Plus, the former five-star recruit from Wisconsin hadn’t tallied more than a dozen points in a contest since doing so in each of the Blue Devils’ first three games of the season over a month ago.
But against the Yellow Jackets, the 19-year-old Knueppel, a full-time starter under third-year Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer, heated up to the tune of 7-for-11 shooting from the field, including an encouraging 4-for-8 clip from downtown.
He finished with a game-high 18 points, adding four rebounds, five assists, one steal, and one block without committing a single turnover across his team-high 32 minutes on the floor.
Kon Knueppel and the Blue Devils have now won six straight, marking the program’s longest winning streak since Duke strung together eight wins after losing to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in Atlanta last December.
They’ll look to make it seven in a row when they host the Virginia Tech Hokies (5-7, 0-1 ACC) in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Dec. 31 at 4:30 p.m. ET (ACC Network).