"I'm tired of hearing about his high school [recruiting] ranking, I'm tired of hearing about he's 170 pounds when he got here, and he's physically skinny and weak. He's none of those things anymore. If the story is that everybody missed on him, we didn't. I'm tired of hearing that, too. We found him. He fit us. This is what college sports is all about, this type of situation."
"Wagler's path to stardom didn't start like that of Kansas' Darryn Peterson, BYU's AJ Dybantsa, Duke's Cameron Boozer or North Carolina's Caleb Wilson. They were top-five recruits. Wagler didn't crack the SC Next 100. They were expected to make immediate impacts. Wagler joined an Illinois team that spent the offseason touting its European stars, not a wispy 6-foot-6 freshman guard from Kansas."
"He leads No. 10 Illinois in scoring (18.2 per game), assists (4.3), steals (0.9) and minutes (33.3) entering Friday's home showdown against No. 3 Michigan. He delivered one of the best single-game performances in Big Ten history with a 46-point effort in the Jan. 24 road win against then-No. 4 Purdue -- the most points by any Big Ten freshman over the past 30 seasons."
Keaton Wagler's rise at Illinois represents an unconventional path to stardom in college basketball. Unlike top-five recruits such as Kansas' Darryn Peterson, BYU's AJ Dybantsa, Duke's Cameron Boozer, and North Carolina's Caleb Wilson, Wagler arrived at Illinois as a lightly-recruited 170-pound freshman guard. Four months into the season, he has emerged as one of the nation's elite players, leading No. 10 Illinois in scoring (18.2 ppg), assists (4.3), steals (0.9), and minutes (33.3). His 46-point performance against then-No. 4 Purdue marked the most points by any Big Ten freshman in 30 years. Coach Brad Underwood emphasizes that Wagler was not missed by scouts but rather found and developed by Illinois, exemplifying what college sports can achieve.
Read at ESPN.com
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