<\/p>\n
Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, left, celebrates with a teammate after Illinois beat Iowa in an Elite Eight game in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston.<\/p>\n
Eric Gay\/AP<\/p>\n
UConn guard Braylon Mullins celebrates his game-winning basket against Duke during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Scarbrough\/AP<\/p>\n
UConn guard Braylon Mullins (24) reacts with teammates after scoring the winning basket against Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington.<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP<\/p>\n
Arizona guard Brayden Burries (5) grabs a rebound during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Purdue, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif.<\/p>\n
Godofredo A. V\u00e1squez\/AP<\/p>\n
Arizona forward Koa Peat (10) dunks during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Purdue, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif.<\/p>\n
Kelley L Cox\/AP<\/p>\n
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Keaton Wagler’s high school basketball transcript contained everything a college coach would want in a recruit.<\/p>\n
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The 6-foot-6 sharp-shooting Illinois guard helped Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Kansas win its first two state titles, one coming with a perfect season. He won a school record 80 games and finished among the top five on the school’s career lists in scoring, rebounds, assists and steals. He earned back-to-back Kansas Class 6A state player of the year awards in 2024 and 2025 and was the state’s 2025 Gatorade Player of the Year as recruiting analysts gave Wagler a four-star grade.<\/p>\n
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Yet, his seemingly sterling resume didn’t translate into the kind of buzz surrounding flashier, more highly touted prospects in this year’s star-studded freshman class. Now, as this weekend’s Final Four approaches, Wagler finds himself squarely in the spotlight as one of college basketball’s top March Madness newcomers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s definitely crazy,” he said after Thursday’s practice at Lucas Oil Stadium. \u201cPlaying for a state championship (last year), like I thought that’d be like the biggest thing I’d ever play in. But getting to a Final Four is definitely a lot bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n The spoils of success are readily apparent everywhere you look in Indianapolis from signs outside the stadium declaring \u201cthe road ends here\u201d to banners of each team’s top seven players hanging in the hallway outside the four locker rooms.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make CT Insider a preferred source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Clearly, Wagler is not in Kansas anymore. Rather, he’s two wins away from capturing a national championship \u2014 just like the other young guns in town this weekend even if the script hasn’t exactly been by the book.<\/p>\n The three freshmen apparently vying to be the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick in June are all missing. Two first-team All-Americans, BYU forward AJ Dybantsa and Duke forward Cameron Boozer, were ousted during the first two tourney weekends. The third contender, Kansas freshman Darryn Peterson, also was eliminated early, as was first-team All-American guard Darius Acuff Jr. of Arkansas, another potential lottery pick.<\/p>\n Second-team All-American Caleb Wilson of North Carolina didn’t even make it that far. He suffered a season-ending thumb injury before the tournament started.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But even with all those prominent headliners sitting at home, plenty of key freshmen are still here.<\/p>\n Wagler, also a second team All-American, leads South Regional champ Illinois (28-8) in scoring at 17.9 points per game and with 85 3-pointers made. His season really took off following a 46-point scoring performance at Purdue in late January.<\/p>\n Up next is East Regional champ UConn (33-5), which made it to Indy thanks in large part to a heroic 35-foot, 3-pointer from freshman guard Braylon Mullins with 0.4 seconds left Sunday. Mullins’ basket sent the Huskies past Duke 73-72 and into their third Final Four in four years, turning the Indiana native into an instant star.<\/p>\n Now Mullins is expecting a large contingent of his hometown fans to make the 37-minute drive from Greenfield, Indiana, to Lucas Oil for Friday’s open practice \u2014 just as he envisioned during his recruiting trip to UConn.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the message coach (Dan Hurley) really wanted to get across \u2014 it was like the goal is Indy,\u201d said Mullins, who overcame an early-season injury to become one of the five double-digit scorers on the team. \u201cEverywhere we walked, it was like you saw Indianapolis. I think that was the whole message, the whole goal and we accomplished it. Now we’ve got to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday’s second game between Midwest Regional champ Michigan (35-3) and West Regional champ Arizona (36-2) also features two impressive freshmen \u2014 the Wildcats’ dynamic duo of Brayden Burries and Koa Peat. They are the top two scorers on a team that spent much of the season ranked No. 1 and was unbeaten until early February.<\/p>\n Last weekend, they helped fuel a dramatic second-half comeback to beat Purdue to chase even higher aspirations in the same city Arizona won its only national title back in 1997.<\/p>\n \u201cThey recruited a lot of winners, and then they already have winners on this team,\u201d Burries said. \u201cSo winning is a big part of our culture, and if you can find ways to win a basketball game, whether that’s scoring, defending, rebounding or just being a great teammate, you can go a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Wolverines might be the most experienced team in town.<\/p>\n But they still needed key contributions from Trey McKenney to navigate the journey. He is averaging 9.8 points and has 15 double-figure scoring games since mid-January in his first college season, including 17 points in the 90-77 regional semifinal victory over Alabama. And, unlike the other freshmen, he’s already announced he’ll be back at Michigan next season.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I’ve definitely gotten better throughout the season,\u201d McKenney said. \u201cBut I think my willingness to learn from my mistakes, stuff that I’ve done wrong, I think I’ve done a really good job of just getting back at it, getting better throughout the season.\u201d<\/p>\n Wagler’s numbers tell a similar tale despite being undervalued coming out of high school.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n While others made the mistake of overlooking Wagler, Illinois coach Brad Underwood decided to take the risk \u2014 and now he’s two wins away from seeing it pay off with the Fighting Illini’s first national title.<\/p>\n \u201cWe signed him and I had not seen him play in person,\u201d Underwood said. “I go see him play. The night before he had 36. The night I go see him, he has two. I was all smiles. I called (assistant coach) Tyler (Underwood) and said \u2018We just found an absolute gem.\u2019 I fell in love with him, and here we are a year later, and he\u2019s the MVP of the South Region.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage<\/a>: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, left, celebrates with a teammate after Illinois beat Iowa in an Elite Eight game in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[382,7,2050,52247,17047,217,2495,41665,2469,42824,87300,231,772,1544,29499,29496,29494,87342,29498,87011,87343,86551,73631,86428],"class_list":{"0":"post-694706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brad-underwood","11":"tag-brayden-burries","12":"tag-cameron-boozer","13":"tag-college-basketball","14":"tag-dan-hurley","15":"tag-darius-acuff-jr","16":"tag-kansas","17":"tag-keaton-wagler","18":"tag-march-madness-final-four","19":"tag-ncaa","20":"tag-ncaa-basketball","21":"tag-ncaab","22":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","23":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","24":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","25":"tag-product-32555-ap-online-college-sports-news","26":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","27":"tag-product-40774-ap-arizona-sports-only","28":"tag-product-40778-ap-connecticut-sports-only","29":"tag-product-40784-ap-illinois-sports-only","30":"tag-product-40785-ap-indiana-sports-only","31":"tag-product-40792-ap-michigan-sports-only"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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