How Counting Rocks Made UCLA’s Gianna Kneepkens a Star

The practice stems from when Kneepkens was a fourth-grader, watching her mother Betsy battle breast cancer. Betsy has since been in remission, but the rocks stayed a part of the Kneepkens’ family routine. “It’s easy to blow off time,” Betsy says. “I mean, everybody does it. So we take a rock and move the rock every day. It’s about understanding that you’ve been given this moment in time, and not to waste it.”

Every day, every rock has its purpose. Gianna never rushes anything. 

Fast forward five months and she will be kicking off her final season of college basketball and first season at UCLA with a 20-point performance that leads the No. 3 Bruins to a 73-59 victory over No. 8 Oklahoma. The win will show why the Bruins were so keen on getting Gianna in the portal, and how, as head coach Cori Close says, “She could be the missing puzzle piece” to winning a national championship. 

It will also make Gianna visible nationally in a way she hadn’t been during her first four years at Utah. It’s one step closer to a Final Four. One step closer to a national title. One step closer to hearing her name called in the WNBA Draft. 

Four Games to Bet On Thanksgiving Weekend

Updated, November 26 : Here’s something to be thankful for: Hoops HQ’s gambling tandem drop their moneymaking picks ahead of Feast Week, starting with Duke vs Arkansas

But none of those goals would be possible if she hadn’t moved that rock on a normal July day in Minnesota. That’s how Gianna approaches life and basketball. Step by step. Day by day. Rock by rock. 

She describes herself as a simple but strategic person. That goes all the way back to playing basketball in the driveway as a kid with her five older brothers. It was then that Gianna discovered something: If you missed a shot, the ball would roll down the sloped driveway and you would have to run after it. If you made the shot there was no running to be done. 

“I didn’t miss much,” she says with a laugh. “So my brothers always had to run after it.”

That was the first, but not the last time Gianna had to outsmart the system when it came to basketball.

She attended Duluth Marshall, a small catholic K-12 school that didn’t have enough interest in basketball to field a team. But Gianna had become so obsessed with the game and all the tricks and challenges it took to score the ball, that giving it up was not an option. “It was seventh grade when I realized I just liked the process of doing basketball workouts and challenging myself to get better,” Gianna says. 

Small schools in Minnesota allow seventh and eighth graders to play varsity basketball, but that was a moot point if the school didn’t have enough players for a full roster. 

So Gianna started recruiting girls at her school. Then she started recruiting girls who didn’t go to her school, telling them to come and join the basketball team. It was a private school, but she promised them there were ways to get scholarships and find money to pay for tuition. Eventually, she had herself a basketball team. Not necessarily a good team, but a team nonetheless. Most of the girls had never played basketball, and despite Gianna’s obvious talent, she wasn’t bothered. She was just happy to be on the court getting the chance to untangle the puzzle that is basketball.

That’s the thing she has always liked most about the game. Gianna tried lots of sports, including soccer and a short stint at golf, but none of them challenged her the way basketball did. She liked playing in tight quarters from endline to endline, strategizing the best way to get the ball into the basket. Having teammates who didn’t understand the game was simply another challenge. It was also one Gianna knew she could navigate.

“It was very cute because she just picked up anyone,” Betsy says. “Whether they played or not, she took them as they were and embraced them.”

Besides, creating a team was the first step – one rock moved out of the container. Having a squad that was competitive would be another rock, or something to be dealt with later.

Betsy remembers one game where the team, which only had about eight players, struggled with fouls (a natural consequence of having a roster full of basketball newbies). By the time the game was over, all but three players had fouled out, but they finished the game anyway with Gianna leading the charge until the buzzer sounded.

Eventually, that team got better, and Gianna even led Duluth Marshall to its first state tournament in 20 years. She finished her high school career with 3,704 total points, which is the fourth most in Minnesota state history. 

“She’s always been so much fun to watch because she can do anything. Shoot threes, get to the rim, all of it.” says Adam Kneepkens, Gianna’s brother. “I’ll never forget her last high school game. She scored 67 points in a state tournament game. It was incredible.”

Gianna has long been a prolific scorer, but putting the ball in the basket has never been about seeing huge numbers next to her name on the stat sheet. It, like most everything she does, is about the tactics it takes to make those points happen. “I liked the challenge of figuring out the best ways to make a play,” she says. “Like if I’m getting double-teamed I’m strategizing, ‘How can I get through this?’ And my basketball instincts kick in.” 

That high basketball IQ harkens back to Betsy‘s battle with breast cancer. Before being diagnosed, she attended every one of Gianna‘s games, but in fourth grade, Betsy’s cancer spread and became particularly difficult to deal with. Betsy couldn’t leave the house, so the rest of the family brought the games to her. They filmed on a camcorder, and when they got home, Betsy and Gianna would sit on the couch and watch them back while Gianna broke down everything that happened. 

It was a way for Betsy to stay involved and to enjoy the moment as much as she could. Because, though Gianna was too young to know, Betsy worried she might never get to see another game in person, so they did the best they could with what they had. And through the process Gianna learned more about basketball. It’s one thing to play the game; it’s another to sit down next to your mom and explain every decision you made and why you made it. 

Betsy’s fear didn’t come true. And throughout Gianna’s time at Utah, her mom rarely missed a game. One of those games marked a turning point for Gianna. 

In 2023, Utah was a top-10 team for most of the season. The Utes advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, losing by just three points to eventual national champion LSU, with Gianna leading her squad in both points (20) and rebounds (8). So when the next season began, and both Gianna and Alissa Pili (one of the best players in Utah history and eventual No. 8 pick in the WNBA Draft) were still on roster, expectations for the Utes exploded. 

Those expectations crashed during a December game against BYU when Gianna felt a strange sensation in her foot. As soon as she hit the floor, Gianna knew something was horribly wrong. “It felt like my shoe broke,” she says. “But when I looked down it was fine. It was the weirdest feeling ever, because it wasn’t really that painful.”

Her coaches told her not to think the worst, but Gianna was practical.

“I knew it was bad because I’d never felt anything like it,” she says.

Gianna broke multiple bones in her foot and had to miss the rest of the season, taking a medical redshirt. She allowed herself to be sad, but only briefly. After that the patented Kneepkens’ family mentality took over. The first step to recovery was an “upside board” that she and Betsy created together. It’s still in the Kneepkens family home, a keepsake that Betsy will likely treasure forever. On it they listed things like, “The opportunity to attend grad school” and “A chance to have your body grow another year being stronger and better for your final season of college basketball.” 

Another upside was unexpected. Early in her rehab process Gianna couldn’t do any kind of basketball work. She couldn’t jump. She couldn’t work on shooting off the dribble. She couldn’t even spot up for threes. But what she could do was practice free throws. So she did. Over and over and over again. The next season was Gianna’s best year at the stripe. She shot 89 percent, just one percentage point off of being a 40/50/90 player. That jump in free-throw makes would not have happened if she didn’t get injured. Another example of making the most of what you’ve been given, whether it’s a brutal injury, or the opportunity to play for a Final Four team. 

Close says that every coach has a list of players they wish were on their team. They keep it in the back of their minds just in case the day comes where said player enters the transfer portal. At the top of her list was Gianna Kneepkens. So when word got out that the Utah guard was planning to leave Salt Lake, Close jumped into action. It was no secret that the Bruins needed more shooting to clear up the paint for All-American center Lauren Betts, and when it comes to shooting, there are few better in the country than Gianna. 

For national basketball fans, Gianna remains a bit of an unknown. She’s not generating headlines or putting up SportsCenter highlights. But what she is doing is being a solid player that can contribute on any team. That’s why UCLA wasn’t the only squad to reach out to her. Several top contenders wanted Gianna, including Texas, Oklahoma and South Carolina. “She wasn’t underrated to anyone who played her in the Pac-12, I can tell you that,” Close says. “We went into high gear and absolutely just put all our eggs in that basket.”

Gianna took a vastly different approach. 

Decision-making, for her, is more like a science. Take her love of chocolate chip cookies, for example. They are her favorite dessert, but Gianna doesn’t have time to whip up homemade cookies – and frankly, her brother Adam says, she’s not a very good cook. So she opts for ready-made, straight from the fridge and into the oven. The cooking process is what matters, anyway, so that’s where she focuses her attention. They must be gooey in the center, but never doughy. Crunchy on the edges but never crispy, and certainly not crumbly. Always served with a cold glass of milk.

Choosing a new school was a lot like that. She cut out the unnecessary steps, and focused on what mattered: Finding a school that would benefit from her skills, while also helping her play at the next level. And of course, she wanted to play for a title contender. 

But no matter how calculated the approach, leaving Utah was always going to be a risk. “There is so much unknown, so of course it’s a risk,” Gianna says. “But it’s a practical risk. I don’t just go out and do crazy things. My risks are well-thought out.”

Risky because she is playing with new teammates. Practical because she played against them in the Pac-12 and knows their skillsets.

Risky because she moved to a new place. Practical because after living in LA, navigating any of the WNBA cities will be a breeze.

Risky because of the unknown. Practical because of the new opportunity. 

Risky because it could be bad. Practical because it could be good. 

All of it is fine with Gianna. 

“I’m grateful for every moment,” she says. “The good, the bad. It’s all a part of life.”

She’s going to move her rocks either way.