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Kon Knueppel fires shot at Jae'Lyn Withers, UNC while describing game-sealing free throws

Chandler Vesselsby:Chandler Vessels•about 11 hours•

ChandlerVessels

kon knueppel
Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

Duke star Kon Knueppel seemed to take a shot at North Carolina when speaking on his game-sealing free throws on Saturday. Knueppel hit a pair of shots from the stripe at the very end of a 74-71 victory against the Tar Heels in the ACC Tournament to send the Blue Devils to the conference championship game.

Before that, however, Tar Heels forward Jae’Lynn Withers committed a lane violation that waved off a potential game-tying free throw. Addressing his mindset in that moment after the game, Knueppel made an offhand comment, joking that he told teammates Patrick Ngongba to be careful about a lane violation when he stepped to the line on the other side.

“Coach told me to go get the ball. I’m a pretty good free throw shooter,” he said. “I told Pat not to do anything stupid like get a lane violation or something in a big moment. But yeah, I already got my miss out, so I knew I was gonna hit both.”

Knueppel finished the game with 12 points, including going 4-for-4 on his free throws. He leads the ACC with a free throw percentage of 90.9%, so he was speaking factually when he deemed himself a good shooter at the foul line.

The victory against North Carolina marked the second in the past week for Duke, which also defeated the Tar Heels by a score of 82-69 in the regular season finale. That also completed a season sweep as the Blue Devils finished 3-0 against the Tar Heels.

Kon Knueppel is a freshman for the Blue Devils and averaging 14.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game. He earned second team All-ACC honors as well as ACC All-Freshman team honors.

Duke advanced to the ACC Tournament Championship with the victory to take on Louisville on Saturday evening. The Blue Devils are currently projected as a No. 1 seed according to On3’s latest bracketology predictions.

As for North Carolina, it fell to 1-12 in Quad 1 matchups. They are among several teams including Texas, Indiana and Boise State that are campaigning for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. Nonetheless, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi isn’t confident the Tar Heels will earn a ticket to the Big Dance.

“Probably Texas and North Carolina is the toughest comparison – [UNC] a great schedule, not many wins against the field. Texas, not a good schedule, but plenty of wins. So it’s really a contrast,” Lunardi said. “Do you like chocolate? Do you like vanilla? At this moment, though, I would not want to be North Carolina with a 1-12 record in Quad 1.”