CHAMPAIGN, Il. — Long-time “Voice of the Illini,” Brian Barnhart, climbed to his feet, readied a Tiger Woods-like fist pump and primed the vocals for his patented, “He got it!” call as Keaton Wagler whisked by and rose into the air with five Wisconsin defenders converging and the clock dwindling.
Wagler passed up a potential game-tying shot in the final seconds of overtime against Michigan State on Saturday. Surely, this time would be different. Surely, this out-of-nowhere freshman sensation had one last trick in his bag to punctuate a 34-point, seven-assist Herculean effort.
In an alternate universe, that 3-pointer goes in just like the 66 others Wagler has splashed in his cannonball-like entrance to the Big Ten.
Alas, the iron was unkind, but a jump-cut to Wagler’s face provided no hints. You get almost no emotion from Wagler during a game, aside from an occasional shoulder shrug after an old-fashioned three-point play or a subtle three-finger signal to his own bench after canning a parking-lot 3-pointer.
“It’s kind of always just been taught to me to try not to show emotions on the court, like good or bad,” Wagler says. “My dad (Logan) taught me that. If I get mad or frustrated, he’s always like, ‘Don’t show opponents that you’re upset.’ He always says, ‘Don’t show weakness.'”
This kind, skinny, under-ranked, ice-cold freshman is the person that the Underwood Family Business has chosen to build everything around. Coach Brad Underwood is pursuing Illinois’ first trip to the Final Four since 2005. Offensive coordinator Tyler Underwood is on a chase to build the No. 1 offense in the country. Wagler is on a chase of something he didn’t even know was possible.
There are just five true freshmen in the long, proud history of Big Ten basketball who have averaged at least 17 points, four rebounds and four assists:
- Magic Johnson, Michigan State; No. 1 pick in the 1979 NBA Draft.
- Jalen Rose, Michigan; No. 13 pick in the 1994 NBA Draft
- D’Angelo Russell, Ohio State; No. 2 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft
- Dylan Harper, Rutgers; No. 2 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft
- Keaton Wagler, Illinois; No. 150 recruit in the Class of 2025, per 247Sports (and that was the highest rating of all the recruiting services).
Wagler is putting the final touches on a case to post the best freshman season that the Big Ten has ever housed in the one-and-done era, which dates back two decades. The numbers that Russell and Harper put up are comparable, but the teams are not. Russell’s 2014-15 Ohio State club was 24-11 and earned a No. 10 seed in the Big Dance. Try as he might to flip the script, Harper’s Rutgers squad finished under .500. Meanwhile, Wagler is leading an Illinois team that has national title aspirations and is tracking for a No. 2 or No. 3 seed. He’s breaking both brains and models along the way.
Best individual seasons from a Big Ten freshman since 2008, per Bart Torvik’s Box-Plus Minus calculations:
- Keaton Wagler, Illinois: 11.8 BPM
- Cody Zeller, Indiana: 10.9 BPM
- Robbie Hummel, Purdue: 10.8 BPM
- D’Angelo Russell, Ohio State: 10.8 BPM
- Jaren Jackson Jr., Michigan State: 10.8 BPM
“I am surprised how fast my game translated to this level,” Wagler mentioned. “I thought it might take a little bit for me to get used to the physicality and speed of the game.”
Oh, he’s adjusted all right. His 46-point eruption in Mackey Arena against then-No. 4 Purdue broke Illinois’ single-game freshman scoring record. He gave then-No. 7 Nebraska 28 points and five dimes. He drained a halfcourt shot against Northwestern. He’s posted a 30.7 assist rate in Big Ten play and a 2.4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio against league foes.
“Nothing,” Brad Underwood mentioned after the Wisconsin game when asked what else he could possibly need from Wagler. “He needs help. He got picked up 94 feet, and they denied him. Not like that bothers him, but it’s remarkable. Quite remarkable what he’s doing. I didn’t realize he had 34. It was the quietest 34 that there was. He’s getting beaten on. Their bench stands up and claps when they commit a hard foul on him in the first half. That’s what teams are trying to do to him … Couldn’t be prouder of him.”
Wagler points to a transformative summer in which he packed weight onto his thin frame with help from Adam Fletcher, Illinois’ revered strength and conditioning coach. He survived Kylan Boswell’s trial by fire and earned gushing praise from Illinois’ senior guard. He learned what it was like to try and navigate a shot-blocker like 7-foot-2 big man Zvonimir Ivisic, who has go-go gadget arms and swats anything and everything. He convinced the Underwoods that he had to be in Illinois’ starting lineup.
Oh, and made a friend.
Tyler Underwood, 29, has become one of the premier offensive masterminds in college basketball. It was Tyler who convinced his dad to target Wagler on the recruiting trail. The dance between point guard and offensive coordinator is similar to the quarterback-playcaller tango on the gridiron.
That mind-meld between Underwood and Wagler was built on the belief that there was more to this gangly big guard from Shawnee, Kansas, who is a little scrawny but can drill pull-up jumpers and seems to make the right play again and again and again.
“Before every game, he’s always telling me, ‘They can’t guard you; just play how you always play,'” Wagler mentioned. “Then, he just trusts me a lot to make decisions. Especially in late-game situations, he will just put the ball in my hands. He believes I’m gonna make the right play every time. We always mess around with each other, so it’s a good, it’s a good relationship that we have. It honestly seems more like best friends, really. It’s cool.”
There’s even more history on the line for Wagler, whether he likes it or not. No freshman has ever won Big Ten Player of the Year. Wagler is firmly in the thick of that race with Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears Jr. and Purdue’s Braden Smith.
The beauty of this college basketball season is there’s a crescendo coming. The stakes are growing by the game, and Wagler knows what’s coming down the pipe. Illinois has national championship aspirations, and he can help take them to the mountaintop if he keeps hooping like this.
But in a lot of ways, Wagler wants to keep it all the same — just keep taking the singles in his pick-and-roll game. Just keep firing from downtown if the defense relaxes for just a moment. Just keep rebounding, which is a major point of emphasis for his dad, Logan.
Wagler tries to get at least one offensive rebound per game and tip another one out for a second-chance opportunity. He has 46 offensive boards in 25 games this year. That keeps his dad and coach extremely happy. Just keep going back to the well with that patented tight spin move that he’s used to de-pants defenders left and right since he added it to his holster his junior year at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School.
“It’s just always worked,” Wagler says with a laugh. “I just spin super quickly, and it’s not a slow spin. It’s just like a quick spin, and I get it out to my other hand before they can get to it. And then usually if a team starts to recognize it and try to come steal it, I can see them coming, so I’ll hold it in tight and be able to kick it out. It’s hard to stop even if teams know it’s coming.”
His name might bring a shudder in Mackey’s walls, but Wagler still hasn’t dove headfirst into the NIL world. In an era of $3 million contracts for the biggest name in the portal and $1 million deals for role players, Wagler is primed to be the lowest-paid All-American by a country mile.
He had a small promotional deal with McLeod Express, a trucking company in Decatur, Illinois. The t-shirt business has been booming — one features his shot chart from the Purdue masterclass, where he went 13-for-17 from the field, has been flying off the rack — but that’s about it on the money-making front.
“There is one shirt that has my face on it, I think I look crazy in,” Wagler says.
We’ll get the R&D team on that, pronto.
There’s money to be made later. Wagler’s summer schedule is already filling up. His May will be spent at the NBA Draft Combine. Illinois wing Andrej Stojakovic wants to jet back to his home country of Greece after the season to take another swanky vacation. Boswell earned the invite in August. Round 2 will have another visitor.
“Andrej was like, ‘You’re coming with us this time,'” Wagler says. “I think I’m on board for that.”
Just add that to the stack of invites that Wagler has earned, but the itinerary better keep June 24 clear. Wagler will have more history to make on that night.
Maybe he’ll even crack a smile.
