Kevin Sweeney|Before Illinois guard Keaton Wagler was, well, Keaton Wagler, he was just another name buried among a litany of mid-major-plus guard options for Murray State to consider in the 2025 high school recruiting season.
Before Illinois guard Keaton Wagler was, well, Keaton Wagler, he was just another name buried among a litany of mid-major-plus guard options for Murray State to consider in the 2025 high school recruiting season.
The accolades were there: Wagler had won a state title in Kansas that spring at Shawnee Mission Northwest, playing alongside a true recruiting prize in 2026 7-footer Ethan Taylor. So too was the size: Wagler was already 6 6, though he was certainly skinny at 165 pounds. But the Murray State board had lots of names on it. Publicly, Murray offered 24 guards in the 2025 class, and plenty more were on the radar in some form but didn’t make the cut. For most of that spring and summer, Wagler was among the latter. Murray’s assistant coaches had seen him, liked him, but hadn’t loved him enough to go to bat for him hard to their boss, head coach Steve Prohm. The slender sharpshooter playing off the main AAU circuits was flying far below the radar.
The accolades were there: Wagler had won a state title in Kansas that spring at Shawnee Mission Northwest, playing alongside a true recruiting prize in 2026 7-footer Ethan Taylor. So too was the size: Wagler was already 6 6, though he was certainly skinny at 165 pounds. But the Murray State board had lots of names on it. Publicly, Murray offered 24 guards in the 2025 class, and plenty more were on the radar in some form but didn’t make the cut. For most of that spring and summer, Wagler was among the latter. Murray’s assistant coaches had seen him, liked him, but hadn’t loved him enough to go to bat for him hard to their boss, head coach Steve Prohm. The slender sharpshooter playing off the main AAU circuits was flying far below the radar.
In the final AAU weekend of that summer, Prohm decided it was worth getting eyes on Wagler in person. He had known Wagler’s AAU coach, Victor Williams, dating back to when Prohm was head coach at Iowa State, and Williams had sold his guard hard to Prohm and anyone else who’d listen. And what Prohm saw that day was, as he says, the best AAU performance he’d ever seen, outside of a handful of surefire NBA players he had evaluated over the years.
In the final AAU weekend of that summer, Prohm decided it was worth getting eyes on Wagler in person. He had known Wagler’s AAU coach, Victor Williams, dating back to when Prohm was head coach at Iowa State, and Williams had sold his guard hard to Prohm and anyone else who’d listen. And what Prohm saw that day was, as he says, the best AAU performance he’d ever seen, outside of a handful of surefire NBA players he had evaluated over the years.
Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images“I’m texting my staff the whole time, ‘Guys, why are we not all over this kid? He is elite, he is special,’” Prohm says. “I was like, man, he’s an NBA player. It’s not even a debate.”
“I’m texting my staff the whole time, ‘Guys, why are we not all over this kid? He is elite, he is special,’” Prohm says. “I was like, man, he’s an NBA player. It’s not even a debate.”
Prohm is as reliable a narrator as there is for underrecruited guard talent. At Iowa State, he signed a three-star point guard named Tyrese Haliburton who quickly proved the recruiting rankings wrong. Prohm saw many of the same attributes in Wagler: A low three-point release but a shot that goes in, elite feel for the game, tons of winning traits. It was like lightning striking twice.
Prohm is as reliable a narrator as there is for underrecruited guard talent. At Iowa State, he signed a three-star point guard named Tyrese Haliburton who quickly proved the recruiting rankings wrong. Prohm saw many of the same attributes in Wagler: A low three-point release but a shot that goes in, elite feel for the game, tons of winning traits. It was like lightning striking twice.
“I came back [to Murray] like, This is who we have to have,” Prohm says. “We are all in every day on Keaton Wagler.”
“I came back [to Murray] like, This is who we have to have,” Prohm says. “We are all in every day on Keaton Wagler.”
Wagler’s meteoric rise from lightly recruited three-star prospect to potential top-five draft pick and Big Ten Player of the Year is a story without parallel in modern college basketball recruiting. These stories are often rather cliché: A savvy coach stumbling into a small gym, perhaps looking at another player, and “discovering” a hidden gem that they keep as secret as possible from the rest of the world. But the way the college basketball world missed Keaton Wagler is a much more complicated story, and one that illustrates the very imperfect art of recruiting in the modern era.
Wagler’s meteoric rise from lightly recruited three-star prospect to potential top-five draft pick and Big Ten Player of the Year is a story without parallel in modern college basketball recruiting. These stories are often rather cliché: A savvy coach stumbling into a small gym, perhaps looking at another player, and “discovering” a hidden gem that they keep as secret as possible from the rest of the world. But the way the college basketball world missed Keaton Wagler is a much more complicated story, and one that illustrates the very imperfect art of recruiting in the modern era.
The biggest driver of the “unseen” adage with Wagler is that he played for a small, independent AAU team called VWBA Elite, run by Williams, who had trained Wagler dating back to seventh grade. Many players in his shoes might’ve felt obligated to move up to a Nike- or Adidas-sponsored team to play in front of more big-name coaches during the recruiting period. But Wagler says he remembered seeing plenty of coaches at VWBA’s 17U games as a 15-year-old just starting out and was confident he could get the attention he needed with the club that had helped him to that point. And he was right: Plenty of high-majors saw Wagler in-person that summer, including one memorable game against eventual Butler commit Azavier “Stink” Robinson that had several high-major head coaches at it. Wagler outplayed Robinson badly that day, as the legend goes, but none of the big-time coaches there extended offers. He did the same in Atlanta against eventual Kentucky guard Jasper Johnson, who played on a team loaded with Division I players while Wagler was VWBA’s only D-I prospect.
The biggest driver of the “unseen” adage with Wagler is that he played for a small, independent AAU team called VWBA Elite, run by Williams, who had trained Wagler dating back to seventh grade. Many players in his shoes might’ve felt obligated to move up to a Nike- or Adidas-sponsored team to play in front of more big-name coaches during the recruiting period. But Wagler says he remembered seeing plenty of coaches at VWBA’s 17U games as a 15-year-old just starting out and was confident he could get the attention he needed with the club that had helped him to that point. And he was right: Plenty of high-majors saw Wagler in-person that summer, including one memorable game against eventual Butler commit Azavier “Stink” Robinson that had several high-major head coaches at it. Wagler outplayed Robinson badly that day, as the legend goes, but none of the big-time coaches there extended offers. He did the same in Atlanta against eventual Kentucky guard Jasper Johnson, who played on a team loaded with Division I players while Wagler was VWBA’s only D-I prospect.
“With college coaches, the narrative is, no one had seen Keaton or he was in a back gym somewhere,” AAU coach Victor Williams says. “That’s not true. College coaches were in the gym with Keaton. I just think they kind of dismissed some things … I didn’t know how people missed it. I always thought it was glaring. By the time he was a junior, going into his senior year, it was so glaring to me that he was a high-major player.”
“With college coaches, the narrative is, no one had seen Keaton or he was in a back gym somewhere,” AAU coach Victor Williams says. “That’s not true. College coaches were in the gym with Keaton. I just think they kind of dismissed some things … I didn’t know how people missed it. I always thought it was glaring. By the time he was a junior, going into his senior year, it was so glaring to me that he was a high-major player.”
At its core, what slowed Wagler’s recruitment wasn’t a lack of eyeballs, but a lack of momentum. He entered the critical recruiting months of June and July before his senior year with limited buzz or attention. He had an offer from his hometown D-I in UMKC and some successful D-II programs in the area and tons of interest from top mid-majors, but none had pulled the trigger with offers.
At its core, what slowed Wagler’s recruitment wasn’t a lack of eyeballs, but a lack of momentum. He entered the critical recruiting months of June and July before his senior year with limited buzz or attention. He had an offer from his hometown D-I in UMKC and some successful D-II programs in the area and tons of interest from top mid-majors, but none had pulled the trigger with offers.
His strongest early interest was from Colorado State, which had plenty of connections to him. The Rams had recently recruited another Kansas City point guard in Kyan Evans, top assistant Ali Farokhmanesh had a relationship with Williams, and Farokhmanesh had heard from plenty of others in the area (including The Athletic writer C.J. Moore, who knew Wagler’s dad) that Wagler was worth pursuing. Plus, Colorado State had seen Wagler plenty in-person because the staff had recruited another player from Wagler’s AAU circuit, Docker Tedeschi.
His strongest early interest was from Colorado State, which had plenty of connections to him. The Rams had recently recruited another Kansas City point guard in Kyan Evans, top assistant Ali Farokhmanesh had a relationship with Williams, and Farokhmanesh had heard from plenty of others in the area (including The Athletic writer C.J. Moore, who knew Wagler’s dad) that Wagler was worth pursuing. Plus, Colorado State had seen Wagler plenty in-person because the staff had recruited another player from Wagler’s AAU circuit, Docker Tedeschi.
“Keaton was one of those guys that you had to watch over time to realize he just makes the right play every time,” Farokhmanesh says, comparing him to all-time CSU great Isaiah Stevens. “He’s not going to go down the lane and dunk on you. He might make six threes in a game, but he just kind of goes about his business and wins. And I think that was what was always so impressive, but you had to watch him multiple times to get that feel for it. If you just went once, I don’t know if you would have just walked away and been like, O.K., this is a high-major lottery pick guy.”
“Keaton was one of those guys that you had to watch over time to realize he just makes the right play every time,” Farokhmanesh says, comparing him to all-time CSU great Isaiah Stevens. “He’s not going to go down the lane and dunk on you. He might make six threes in a game, but he just kind of goes about his business and wins. And I think that was what was always so impressive, but you had to watch him multiple times to get that feel for it. If you just went once, I don’t know if you would have just walked away and been like, O.K., this is a high-major lottery pick guy.”
CSU invited Wagler on an unofficial visit late in June. The calculus on offering a scholarship was tricky: Colorado State feared that if it offered on the visit and Wagler didn’t commit on the spot, it’d just invite far more eyeballs on Wagler during the July live period. The Rams decided to roll the dice and hope things stayed quiet through July.
