PHOENIX — More than 2,000 miles separate Duluth, Minnesota, from Los Angeles, California, but the two cities have a special person in common. UCLA guard Gianna Kneepkens began learning how to play basketball alongside her five older brothers on a concrete driveway in Duluth, and she ended her college career as the heartbeat of a team from Los Angeles.
Minnesota isn’t exactly a basketball state — hockey is the state’s go-to, she told the Daily Bruin in September.
“When I was younger, basketball wasn’t huge in Duluth. It’s cold up there. It’s what most people consider a hockey state, so there weren’t a ton of older girls basketball players,” she said.
But basketball was the sport for her, so Kneepkens began charting a path that would culminate in her biggest goal: an NCAA championship, a feat she and her UCLA teammates pulled off on Sunday.
Kneepkens, who transferred to UCLA after four seasons (one of which was lost to a broken foot) at Utah, opted to spend her graduate year with the Bruins because she really, really wanted to win. The move was surprising because Kneepkens was so beloved there. She also could have entered the WNBA Draft.
At the time, Kneepkens acknowledged she was a “better person and student-athlete because of my time at the University of Utah.” But, she also said, “Life also provides opportunities, challenges, and times of discomfort so people can stretch themselves. After conversations, prayerful discernment, and much introspection, I have decided to enter the transfer portal.”
After making that decision, Sunday’s victory against South Carolina was the “cherry on top” for Kneepkens.
“I think the trust I have in my teammates just makes me feel so confident,” Kneepkens told reporters postgame in the locker room, which was still soaked from the Bruins’ celebration. “Also, just the work [that] I put in, [that] the team puts in, every day — we work so hard. So I think when you’ve done it over and over, it’s just instinctual when you get out there.”
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A natural fit for the Bruins
Kneepkens has been a crucial piece of the puzzle for UCLA this season, teammate Kiki Rice told reporters on Sunday. “She helps us in so many ways,” Rice said, “and right when she joined this team, we just knew she fit on the court, but also off the court.” Kneepkens’ ability to transition easily from one program to another was partly due to “how she’s been willing to dive right into our culture of our program, add to it and help make us better.”
Teammate Gabriela Jaquez agreed. “Being teammates with her has been so much fun,” she told reporters. “She’s an ultimate competitor. She works so hard, and so you always have so much trust in a person like that because they’re going to be prepared. And … the way that she just fit into this group so seamlessly, that just says a lot about who she is as a player. And I’m just super proud of her.”
The Bruins built that culture intentionally from the beginning, Jaquez said. “We just knew we had the tools, and it was just about staying focused and working hard every day to be the best versions of ourselves … and just taking it one game at a time, and just being our best selves,” she said. “And that led us to this moment.”
That moment is what motivated Kneepkens to join UCLA in the first place. Head coach Cori Close told reporters after the team’s win over Texas on Friday that when she first spoke with Kneepkens, “One of the things she talked about is that she wanted to join a group of women [where she] was challenged, [where] she wasn’t the hardest worker on the team, she wasn’t the only one [in] the gym before and after. She’s a tireless worker.”
Close promised that if Kneepkens joined the Bruins, she would be one of 12 athletes giving their all, day in and day out. She repeated that on Sunday and described Kneepkens as a “spectacular competitor.”
“I knew one of the things I thought we could really give her is that she’s always had to be the most hardworking player, and she’s always had to do it alone,” Close said. “And I think that I told her, I said, ‘When you come here, you will get buoyed by the comradeship. … Everybody does that here. That’s the baseline expectation here.'”
Though Close knew Kneepkens was a hard worker, she didn’t know a lot of other things about her — things you learn over time, after spending hours, days, weeks and months rooting for one another. “I didn’t know she was as funny as she is,” Close said. “I didn’t know that she was going to fit in so seamlessly off the court. It’s just been so rewarding.”
UCLA’s culture also includes not forgetting where you’re from, and Utah wasn’t far from Kneepkens’ mind on Sunday. After the game, she and Close FaceTimed former Utah head coach Lynne Roberts together before going into the locker room to celebrate.
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Childhood passion comes full circle
For Kneepkens, a lot of things came full circle on Sunday. “We started basketball because we loved it as little girls,” she said in the locker room. “We played it with joy, and you’re at your best when you’re able to play free and play with that joy.”
UCLA’s 2025-26 season was, if anything, an experience dominated by joy. The team literally danced through game after game, either by way of videos shared on social media or onstage in Phoenix. In the end, as much as Kneepkens was the key to the Bruins’ success this season, joy was the key for her.
“There’s a fine line between joy and being silly,” she added, “and we just know that line of being locked in and having fun doing it.”
Like her teammates, Kneepkens will have a week to cool off and reconnect with friends and family before another life-changing event: the 2026 WNBA Draft. Many people project her to be drafted in the first round. Kneepkens, likely living in the moment, didn’t comment on what’s next, but it’s safe to say we’ll be hearing her name for some time to come.
Looking for more March Madness stories? Read all our NCAA Tournament coverage at The IX Sports.
