Keaton Wagler gives Illinois basketball a Swiss Army Knife

The class of 2025 just got bigger, as the Illinois basketball team has landed its first commitment.

At one time, the Illini had the best class in the country for 2025. We had multiple high-level recruits, but that class was dismantled. Brad Underwood and the Illinois coaching staff had to rebuild.

On Wednesday night, the first building block was put back into place. Keaton Wagler took to social media to announce his commitment to the Orange and Blue.

This commitment comes just about a week after Wagler took his official visit to Illinois. The recruitment moved quickly, and Wagler was impressed enough to pull the trigger on a pledge.

Illinois wasn’t Wagler’s only scholarship offer, though. He had offers from teams like DePaul, Minnesota, and Colorado State to name a few.

Wagler also took official visits to Minnesota, Southern Illinois, Murray State, and Colorado State, and then capped things off with a trip to Champaign.

Keaton Wagler is going to give Brad Underwood and the Illinois basketball team more backcourt flexibility

Just in the past few months, Wagler’s recruiting ranking improved greatly. He is now a four-star recruit who is ranked as the No. 150 player in the class of 2025. He is also the No. 28 shooting guard in the country and the No. 1 player coming out of Kansas.

The 6-foot-6 guard has the ability to play multiple roles, though. While Wagler is listed as a shooting guard, Illinois has already mentioned that they want to use him as a point guard, as Wagler mentions in an article just over a week ago.

I believe the optimal scenario would be for Kylan Boswell to stick around for his senior season in 2025-26. That would be Wagler’s freshman campaign, and the young guard could learn behind someone like Boswell. That experience would be invaluable.

This is going to be an underrated snag for the Illini. Wagler has great ability on both ends of the court, and I can’t wait to see what this kid can do.