HOUSTON — One of the Illinois assistant coaches found Keaton Wagler before tipoff against Houston and challenged the wiry freshman to get 10 rebounds.
For the Illini to win a Sweet Sixteen game over Houston, it had to win the rebounding battle, and those rebounds had to come from everyone, including the freshman guard with a thin frame but plenty of will.
Message received and rebounds delivered. Wagler finished with a career-high 12 rebounds to go with 13 points in No. 2 seed Illinois' 65-55 win over No. 2 seed Houston on Thursday night at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston to advance to Saturday's Elite Eight game against Iowa.
"I just try to come in here and do what my teammates need me to do to win the game," Wagler said. "If that's score the ball, then score the ball. If that's getting the ball out of my hands, like it was tonight, to get my teammates to make plays, I'll do that. Coaches were telling us before the game, it's going to be a guard game to get rebounds. We need 10-plus out of the guards. So I took that challenge on. I went in there, tried to play as tough as I could, not let them get any second-chance rebounds. So I went in there and tried to get every rebound I could."
Wagler, despite being still relatively slender, is averaging 5.1 rebounds and has at least five in all three NCAA Tournament games. He's had seven or more rebounds 12 times in 35 games this season.
