Michigan State coach Tom Izzo on AJ Hoggard: 'He'll always be part of my family'
CLEVELAND — AJ Hoggard’s phone still buzzes frequently with Michigan State basketball group text messages.
“The way we talk in the group chat,” Hoggard said Thursday, “you'd have thought I was still there.”
Parting was sweet sorrow, in some ways, when the fifth-year senior left the Spartans for his final season. He ultimately chose Vanderbilt, which, like MSU, opens NCAA tournament play Friday at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
The 10th-seeded Commodores face 7-seed Saint Mary’s in the East region first round around 3:15 p.m. The Spartans, the No. 2 seed in the South region, play 15-seed Bryant around 10:15 p.m. That means there might not be much crossover time for Hoggard and his former teammates to reconnect.
But after four years playing for Tom Izzo and graduating from MSU last April, Hoggard continues to keep tabs on his former program.
“I thought it was just time for something new,” Hoggard said. “I really wanted to go pro, but things weren't going the way I wanted to go. So just coming back, getting another shot at college and getting a fresh start.
“There was no love lost, there was no bad blood on making a decision to come to a different school. So it was just about doing what I felt was best for me at the moment.”
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound fifth-year senior from Coatesville, Pa., averages 9.8 points, 4.6 assists and 2.7 rebounds for the Commadores, who went 20-12 this season in the grueling SEC.
A year ago in his fourth and final season with MSU, Hoggard averaged 10.7 points and 5.2 assists to earn All-Big Ten honorable mention and became one of just five Spartans all-time with 1,000 points and 600 assists in his career. He helped lead MSU to the Sweet 16 as a junior in 2023, but the Spartans never contended for a Big Ten title and also had three early exits in his four seasons, squeaking into the 2021 tournament as a First Four entry.
Hoggard tested the NBA draft process briefly before deciding to return to college. It just wouldn’t be at MSU.
“They try to make it seem like me and (Izzo) were at odds the whole time I was there. We had a great relationship. We talk all the time,” Hoggard said . “If I play and they're not playing, or we're talking about their game or my game, we keep in touch. And that's how coach is with everybody – everybody that came and put that jersey on whether it was for one year, two years, he's the same way with everybody.
“He treats like a Spartan family, everybody's always welcome back. … I love just knowing that you got somebody like that in your corner, whether you're there or not.”
Hoggard said “it was easy” to come back this summer to East Lansing and participate in the program’s “Grind Week,” where former players in the pros work out with the current team and each other in spirited workouts and pickup games. Even though he already had moved on to Vanderbilt.
“I don't think that it settled in that I went to Vanderbilt until I played my first game, to be honest. It was completely natural,” Hoggard said of that week back at MSU. “I'd been there for four years, that's what I consider home. That's what it was for me. So it was just back for a weekend, that's really what it felt like.”
Izzo during his Thursday news conference said Hoggard’s parents came back to MSU this fall for a football game. And the 30th-year Hall of Fame coach said he has been talking to or texting with Hoggard a few times a week since he left. He also said he has been pulling for both Hoggard and Vanderbilt (where his nephew, Matt Bucklin, is an assistant coach) and Mady Sissoko at California.
“Those guys graduated from our place. They'll always be part of us,” Izzo said. “Sometimes things work out for better or worse, but nobody leaves my place very often with a lot of animosity. They leave it. I tell them the truth. They tell me the truth, and it works out …
“I want (Hoggard) to be successful. I really do. I don't sit there and say, 'I hope he fails,' if that's what anybody thinks. He's a graduate of Michigan State, he's a part of my family. He'll always be part of my family.”
Hoggard said after MSU beat Michigan to end the regular season, he quickly called his former roommate, Tre Holloman, to talk about the shove of two Wolverine players who were attempting to prevent the tradition Hoggard experienced last year — kissing the midcourt logo on the final game at Breslin Center.
Hoggard — who watched most of the game before turning it off before the shove to attend to other responsibilities —said one of those U-M players, Phat Phat Brooks from Grand Rapids, took an unofficial visit to MSU while he was still there. He also said recruits are shown a video of the tradition when they come to campus.
“(Holloman) asked them three times to move. Everything,” Hoggard said. “‘Kissing the Floor’ is a (documentary) on Big Ten Network. Before you come to Michigan State, we see it all the time, so it should be no confusion on what's going on when it's time for people to get subbed. I don't understand that.”
Hoggard added about the U-M players: “They know. They know.”
As for the rest of his talks with Holloman, Hoggard had a big brother sense of pride for what the Spartans have done this season.
“The conversations we had and him going out there and accomplishing the things that we talked about that I couldn't get done there,” Hoggard said, “it was definitely just exciting for me to see from afar and be happy for them. … I have genuine love for the guys that have genuine love for me.
"Those are gonna be my brothers forever. So I was just happy to see them get Michigan State back on the winning track.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
Subscribe to the "Spartan Speak" podcast for new episodes weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. And catch all of our podcasts and daily voice briefing at freep.com/podcasts.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tom Izzo: former MSU PG AJ Hoggard 'will always be part of my family'
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