man, i know this goes against all the talking heads, but I think there's a possibility that Wagler's stock falls after the combine (if not sooner). Clearly super-skilled, and will play in the league as a high pick eventually, but when he has faced teams with length/athleticism, he has not been effective. I think that, as much as he is a great story ("nobody recruited him", etc), the NBA will see him as having significant issues to develop before teams are going to lay out a lottery pick on him.
Looking at Michigan, Mich St, Tennessee, Uconn, Alabama, and even throwing in UCLA as a long/athletic team (although obviously flawed in some ways), these are Keaton's numbers:
16.4% from the field
32.4% from 3 (which includes 3/6 against Michigan, sub-30% if you take those out)
14.2 PPG
5 RPG
3 APG
1.8 TO
That is obviously leaving Purdue out, but that's a prime example of why he has had such success through a stretch where we played a bunch of teams that were going to have big time match-up issues against us. With Purdue, they obviously have a lot of talent, but their fatal flaw is there bigs are vulnerable to switching, and Smith/Loyer are not defensively intimidating. Texas Tech is another team with NBA talent that he played well against, but that's not a team like Uconn or Michigan that have like 6-8 NBA bodies to throw at him.
Through that stretch in the end of jan through mid-feb, we just hunted mismatches (Purdue being the best example), and Wagler (among others) exploited them. But I think that's more vindication of the Underwoods identifying a way to build a super-efficient college offense that it is an indication of Wagler's hypothetical success playing at the next level next year. Not many NBA teams are going to have someone with Oscar Cluff's capability and body, let alone let Wagler switch on to him. and even if they do, they will have at least 3 other guys on the court with enough length and athleticism that he won't be able to exploit that.
I love that this kid is an Illini, and stoked to have another freshman, along with Mirk, that has national attention. And for sure it would be real surprising if he doesn't get a decent run in the NBA, but I think NBA teams will see the limitations of his game. I know the draft is all about potential, but there is a looooooot of potential in this years draft class. If he goes 5 through 10 in the draft, good on him, take the money and do the work, but he also has a level of clear raw talent that he could be in the sort of Dybantsa vs Boozer vs Peterson discussion that is happening this year.
My logic is obviously clouded by delusional hopes that we have 6 or 7 of these guys running it back next year (including Ty in that mix), and feeling like we have a team that will be in the type of top tier that Michigan/Arizona/Duke are in this year, but I think that the feel-good story of small-town kid that got overlooked and then dropped 46 at Mackey is what is driving all the top-5 talk around Wagler, not what real NBA evaluation is going to shake out in the end.
