Tom Izzo goes in-depth on continued development of AJ Hoggard

Michigan State bounced back from two straight losses with two straight wins over Penn State and Brown. In both of those wins, the Spartans saw some impressive play from junior guard AJ Hoggard, who’s shown improvement in multiple areas so far this season, which head coach Tom Izzo spoke about.

“When AJ is like he’s been in practice, a few times we had one day of prep for this one, he was good. Day of the shoot around he was good, and not that he’s ever been like bad, I can tell a lot more engaged and I appreciate that,” Izzo said.

So far this season through 11 games Hoggard has shown improvement in nearly every aspect of his game compared to last year, increasing his points, assists, and rebounding numbers per game in his larger role.

“I think that’s the greatest thing about coaching, if you can take somebody that doesn’t get it and all of a sudden, as they say, the preverbal lightbulb goes on. If that lightbulb goes on and it can stay on, that’s the work right now, can the lightbulb stay on?” Izzo asked. “But I like the fact that I think we’re having conversations about it and he handled it well when I didn’t start him, but I think I handled it well, because I called him in and told him, I didn’t just bench him, I just called him and told him why.”

Hoggard was in the Spartans’ starting lineup all season until their game versus Northwestern when he came off the bench. And it’s safe to say he learned his lesson and took to his coaching, returning as a starter in their next two contests and scoring a career-high 23 points against Penn State followed by a 17-point outing versus Brown.

“I always said when I got this job the difference with this generation and the one before is you don’t get to be a dictator and tell a kid what to do anymore, you have to tell them why he’s got to do this. You’ve got to come up with reasons where it will help him and the team. It used to be Vince Lombardi said, do this, jump, ask how high, that was great, those things aren’t happening anymore,” Izzo explained.

Coaching has surely changed since Lombardi’s era, but Hoggard has become the beneficiary of the nuances. Hoggard averaged seven points per game a season ago, and now ranks third on the team averaging 13.1 along with a team-leading 5.7 assists per game.

“But right now I think AJ’s starting to see, ‘well he was on me about my free throws, he’s on me about my weight, he’s on me about my defense. Geez I’m doing those things better and geez I’m playing better and we’re playing better.’ So it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that out and we can keep that going,” Izzo said. “I’ve enjoyed the progress he’s made immensely, I really have.”