Vanderbilt lands transfer commitment from Michigan State guard AJ Hoggard

Vanderbilt just made a splashy addition via the transfer portal as former Michigan State guard AJ Hoggard has announced his pledge to the Commodores for the 2024-25 season.

Hoggard has spent the past four years with the Spartans. While in East Lansing, he appeared in 131 games, including 83 starts. 67 of those came the last two seasons as a junior and senior. After this past season, he decided to test the NBA Draft waters while also entering the transfer portal.

The latter decision came after some interesting comments by MSU head coach Tom Izzo, who essentially stated that the veteran Spartan guard had worn out his time in East Lansing.

“Well, AJ’s down at the camp right now. Him and Tyson (Walker) are both down in Portsmouth,” Izzo said on ‘Staudt on Sports’ the week of the Portsmouth Invitational, which is basically college basketball’s version of a senior bowl.

“AJ’s looking to make a pro career. But he could go back to college, it wouldn’t be here,” Izzo added. “I think it’s – we have some younger guys and he has exhausted his and he’ll graduate.”

So, Michigan State moves on and so does AJ Hoggard, who now links up with new head coach Mark Byington at Vandy.

For the ‘Dores, this is the type of addition they’ve been missing for the last several seasons. Folks around the SEC always swore up and down that Jerry Stackhouse could coach ball, and that he was especially strong with the x’s and o’s on the offensive side of the ball. However, he just couldn’t acquire big-time talent in Nashville.

Well, Hoggard may not be a superstar, but he’s a pedigree of player that rarely winds up at Vanderbilt — or, used to wind up at Vanderbilt, because Byington is starting to turn the ship around on the recruiting front.

With Hoggard, here’s a four-year Michigan State contributor who was a primary starter on the last two Spartan teams. Over the last two seasons, when he became an everyday starter, Hoggard averaged 11.8 points per game along with 3.4 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 1.2 steals, playing just shy of 30 minutes a night.

He now joins some pretty solid other backcourt additions for Vandy, although Hoggard is likely a starter whose name you can right in pen for next season’s lineup. Alongside him there’s guys like MJ Collins from Virginia Tech, Chris Manon from Cornell, Grant Huffman from Davidson, Alex Hemenway off of Clemson’s Elite Eight squad, and Jason Edwards, the 19-point-per-game scorer from North Texas.

Vanderbilt is heading into the new-look SEC with a brand new coach and a completely different type of roster than Commodore fans are used to. There should be plenty of excitement around the basketball court next winter for this school.