As recently as two summers ago, Keaton Wagler was a little-known recruit playing off the main AAU circuits.
Hometown University of Missouri-Kansas City was the only Division I school to offer Wagler prior to the summer before his senior year of high school. More established mid-majors began to show interest during that critical recruiting period as Wagler outplayed player after player ranked higher than he was. It wasn’t until the Illinois staff watched film of Wagler after that summer and became enamored with the tall but slender guard that the Illini finally swooped in late and stole him.
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What happened next altered the trajectory of Illinois basketball and turned a very good Illini team into a threat to win this year’s national title. Wagler has evolved into one of the top playmaking guards in this year’s loaded freshman class, blossoming from overlooked recruit to projected top-10 draft pick in a span of mere months.
Everything that makes Wagler special was on display Saturday evening as third-seeded Illinois overcame ninth-seeded Iowa 71-59 to win an all-Big Ten Elite Eight clash. Wagler piled up a game-high 25 points on 8-for-17 shooting, sending the Illini to the Final Four for the first time in 21 years.
It’s difficult to pinpoint Wagler’s most remarkable highlight because he had a few that should be contenders to make One Shining Moment.
Was it this spinning layup that banked high off the glass and went down to tie the score with just over 16 minutes to play in the second half?
Or maybe this spin-dribble step-back a few minutes later that put Wagler’s former AAU teammate Isaia Howard on skates and created about 15 feet of separation?
Or perhaps the way Wagler punctuated a game-changing 8-0 Illinois run late in the second half by getting his defender on his hip, nudging him to create space and deftly pulling up in the paint to sink a 12-footer?
“Keaton’s one of the fabulous stories about what the college experience should be about,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood told reporters earlier this week. “The expectation coming in wasn’t to be a pro or to get rich or to be famous. It was to be a winner and participate on a basketball team.
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“Until you coach them, they deal with adversity, they get in a different environment, you don’t know what you have. And we didn’t know what we had. We knew we had a very talented player that was going to be a great player at some point. His maturity, his poise, that exceeded everything that I ever would have thought.”
Wagler’s ability to carve up Iowa’s defense via screen-and-rolls is one of the biggest reasons that Illinois was able to pull away from Iowa down the stretch. Time and again, Underwood trusted the freshman to hunt a favorable matchup and attack it.
The other key for Illinois was its dominance on the offensive glass. The taller, more aggressive Illini missed 28 shots and three free throws but got their own rebound more than half the time.
While Bennett Stirtz shot Iowa into the lead early in the first half and finished with an efficient 24 points, the heralded point guard didn’t have enough help. Tate Sage was the only other Hawkeyes player to score even 10 points. No one else had more than six.
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Now Illinois moves on to the Final Four, where the Illini will face either Duke or UConn in the national semifinals. Those types of teams could overwhelm Illinois with their size and talent just a couple years ago but not anymore.
Illinois has been an offensive juggernaut all season and its defense has improved enough to climb into the national top 20. It has beaten all four of its NCAA tournament opponents by at least 10 points apiece. Four of its most recent five losses came in overtime. The other one was against national title contender Michigan.
In other words, this is an Illinois team that shouldn’t be satisfied just ending the program’s 21-year Final Four drought.
Led by a freshman point guard who has emerged out of nowhere as one of college basketball’s best players, the Illini are a threat to do some more damage in Indianapolis.
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