Keaton Wagler of the Illinois Fighting Illini makes a three-point shot during the first half of the Music City Madness game against the Tennessee Volunteers at Bridgestone Arena on Dec. 6, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. Johnnie Izquierdo Getty Images
After dropping off the youngest of her three children at college last summer, Jennifer Wagler fretted, as any mother would, about keeping in touch with the baby of the family.
So she downloaded the Snapchat app.
Each morning, she sends Illinois freshman sensation Keaton Wagler a snap. You could call it the 21st century version of a note in a kid’s lunchbox.
“I talk to my mom every day on Snapchat,” Keaton Wagler said. “I think that’s just an easy way for us to check in. You don’t even have to call or anything, but just say hi on snap or whatever. So I talk to my family pretty much every day.
“She uses a funny filter each day. So it’s fun to see her having fun with it.”
Jennifer Wagler and her husband, Logan, live in Lenexa, roughly a 400-mile drive from Champaign, Illinois. The Snapchat idea may have been a way to keep up with Keaton, but that hasn’t been a problem because he’s had a breakout season with the Illini.
Earlier this week, Wagler was named a second-team All-American, and he was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year after averaging a team-best 17.9 points per game with 140 assists. Wagler will lead the Illini in their NCAA tourney opener Thursday night against Penn.
Wagler, 19, hopes to continue a personal unbeaten streak. He hasn’t lost a potential season-ending tournament game since his sophomore year at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School. The Cougars won back-to-back Kansas state (Shop K-State) titles and he was the Gatorade Player of the Year last season.
During his Shawnee Mission Northwest career, Wagler scored 1,105 points, grabbed 464 rebounds, dished 272 assists and had 100 steals.
Despite that success, Wagler was only rated as the No. 261 player in his class as a junior — a three-star prospect, according to the 247Sports. The 6-foot-6 guard was elevated to 150th in his class and a four-star rating shortly before he committed to Illinois in September 2024, ahead of his senior season at Northwest.
But that signing wasn’t huge recruiting news like we saw with BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Kansas’ Darryn Peterson.
These days, however, a different ranking is bullish on Wagler. He is predicted to go sixth overall to the Atlanta Hawks in ESPN’s latest mock draft. USA Today has Wagler being the seventh overall choice in the NBA Draft.
Wagler’s rise has astonished his biggest supporters: his parents.
“They’ll pop up sometimes on TV,” Jennifer Wagler said of the mock drafts, “and we’ll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so wild.’”
‘A hard time processing it’
As a three-star prospect, Wagler’s recruiting process was decidedly unconventional. He wanted to have his college choice decided before starting his senior season with the Cougars.
The Kansas City Roos were the first to offer him, and other schools showed interest. But there was no interest from a Power Four school.
Wagler was on the road to Southern Illinois after visiting Murray State in August 2024 when, in the back of his parents’ car, he heard his phone buzz.
It was Illinois coach Brad Underwood.
“I was expecting them (Illinois) to call, but when it was Brad and he said that he was going to offer me, I was kind of shocked, because it was literally my first time talking to him,” Wagler recalled. “So it was kind of crazy. And then we lost service. So I was like, tripping. ‘Oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do? My phone lost service.’ So, yeah, it was definitely out of the blue, and a shocker for me.”
The family continued the trip to Carbondale and Wagler reconnected with Underwood, who made the offer official. The family went to dinner; afterward, Minnesota called with another scholarship opportunity.
The Waglers still visited Southern Illinois the following day.
“We drove into Carbondale and spent a couple days there with them, and they were extremely nice,” said Wagler’s father, Logan. “But they were laughing about, ‘You’re the only person that’s ever come on a visit and got two high-major offers.’ It was surreal.”
That’s a word Wagler’s parents often use to describe the basketball season. They weren’t sure how much Keaton would even play as a freshman at Illinois. He started the opener and kept having success, including a 46-point effort at Purdue, a record for a visiting player.
Wagler later dropped 28 points in a win at Nebraska and scored 34 with seven assists against Wisconsin. Soon after, he was the subject of feature stories on ESPN and The Athletic.
“We always talk about how he was just playing in the Sunflower League last year,” Jennifer Wagler said, “and then now it’s (Michigan State coach) Tom Izzo or whoever talking about having a game plan for Keaton.”
Wagler’s meteoric rise from the 261st prep prospect to a potential NBA lottery pick in June has been tough for his parents to wrap their minds around. The original plan was a return to Illinois, but the thought of a lifelong dream of playing in the NBA has to be hard to ignore, right?
The sixth pick in last year’s NBA Draft was Tre Johnson, who got a four-year, $37.4 million contract with the Washington Wizards — including $16.9 million guaranteed — according to Spotrac.
That’s roughly double the amount of the largest NIL deal given to a basketball player.
“Keaton’s never made money a priority here,” Landon Wagler said. “Choosing Illinois wasn’t a money choice. Obviously, these are his decisions, and money was discussed on all these visits and all these teams, but we told him, pick the best fit, both from a development standpoint and an opportunity standpoint. So he was able to do that, and I think that’s going to be his approach going into this offseason. What’s the right move for me if I’m ready? I mean, just a lot of things to consider.
“But as parents, honestly, it’s been really hard to process. This has happened so fast and been so unexpected that we’ve been having a hard time processing it, and honestly, we’ve intentionally not discussed it with Keaton too much, other than checking in on him. That’s a decision to be made in the future. Right now, just focus on the task in front of us. So that’s kind of been the priority for him and honestly, kind of for us as well. We’re just trying to enjoy the season before we get ahead of ourselves.”
A basketball family
The elder Waglers, who both played basketball at Hutchinson Community College, have traveled to many of Keaton’s games this season, although they missed that epic Purdue game because of a snowstorm.
They also made a point of seeing their older son Landon’s games at Mid-America Nazerene, where they were accompanied frequently by their daughter, Brooklyn, who won a national championship at Kansas City Kansas Community College in 2016.
Now they’re all rooting for Keaton to bring home an NCAA hoops championship with Illinois. It would be his third title in as many years — and that’s his motivation, he said, not the thought of making the leap to the NBA.
“For me, it’s just trying to focus on the present, because the NBA Draft and stuff like that isn’t for another couple months or so,” Wagler said. “So that’s all the way in the future, and right now, especially, it’s the biggest time of the year, the month for basketball with the tournament coming up.
“You just can’t lose focus on what’s going on right now, so that you can be ready for the big games and try and make a deep run in the tournament.”
Illinois hasn’t made the Final Four since 2005, when the Illini had the best finish in school history as the national runner-up. Given Wagler’s track record, it wouldn’t be wise to bet against him helping Illinois reach new heights this month.
The former three-star recruit is one of the best college basketball players as a freshman and could soon be in the NBA. One person who never doubted all this was possible is Wagler.
“I definitely thought I was underrated, for sure. But I think that came with deciding not to play on a shoe-brand circuit AAU team,” he said. “And I guess just being from Kansas, it might get harder to get recruited out there.
“But for me, I didn’t really pay attention to that stuff. It didn’t really matter to me. I just knew that, like, if you were good enough, then the right coaches would find you, and that’s what happened.”
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