The newcomer could be a bigger addition than many of us expected.
We’ve all heard it before, preseason hype about a player we haven’t even seen play a single second for our favorite team. The Illini especially
have had no shortage of talented freshmen over the past five or so seasons. There was plenty of hype from the very moment players like Ayo Dosunmu, Kofi Cockburn, and Will Riley committed to the program, as well as others. However, this situation seems a little bit different from the other recently hyped illini recruits.
Keaton Wagler is a 6-foot-6, 4-star shooting guard from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Kansas. He is skilled, tall, and long especially for his position. He is also a very smooth offensive player, with a wide variety of skills. His tough shot making ability may not be as great, but watching him with the ball in his hands certainly reminds me of watching Will Riley in many ways. All of those things are very promising, but some of the talk within the team about him has been even more telling.
With the Illini having such a loaded roster this season full of new players and talents, Wagler may have been a bit forgotten about especially by fans. Part of that likely has to do with the fact he was a borderline top=100 recruit, and the Illini have seen plenty of those types of players over the last decade. But, now that the season is close to starting, his talent has been a bit harder to hide. Kylan Boswell was asked about his thoughts on newcomer Wagler the other day, and responded with: “He’s going to be one of our best players on this team, not even a doubt in my mind. He’s cold.”
That is extremely high praise for someone who hasn’t played a second of Division I basketball, and carries even more weight due to the fact one of our veteran leaders proclaimed it. Sure, we all hear the hype and coach talk every year from Brad Underwood. This was much more than him throwing around the word elite when talking about a player to the media, this was a leader of the team giving his honest opinion about one of our new additions. That is truly what excites me most about all of this Wagler hype.
