Vandy transfer guard AJ Hoggard on Tennessee: 'We don't like them, they don't like us'
AJ Hoggard is new to the Tennessee-Vanderbilt basketball rivalry, but the Michigan State transfer guard knows what to expect when the Vols and Commodores meet on Saturday afternoon in Nashville.
“I’m just treating it how I used to treat Michigan State versus Michigan,” Hoggard said Wednesday night. “We don’t like them, they don’t like us.”
No. 6 Tennessee (16-1, 3-1 SEC) and Vanderbilt (14-3, 2-2) are set for a 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time start on SEC Network at Memorial Gym in Nashville.
It won’t be Hoggard’s first look at the Vols. He started and scored 14 points against Tennessee in the charity exhibition game in East Lansing last season, adding two assists, a rebound and three turnovers in 27 minutes.
Hoggard averaged 8.6 points, 4.6 assists and 2.8 rebounds over the last four years at Michigan State, appearing in 131 games with the Spartans.
Through 16 games at Vanderbilt, he’s up to 11.1 points, 4.3 assists and 2.6 rebounds in 25.8 minutes per game, starting 15 times for first-year Vandy coach Mark Byington.
Vandy coach Mark Byington spent last four seasons at James Madison
Byington’s new-look Vanderbilt roster won 13 of its first 14 games this season before back-to-back losses last week at home against Mississippi State and on the road at Missouri. The Commodores bounced back with a 66-63 win over South Carolina in Nashville on Wednesday, winning on a shot at the buzzer.
Byington was hired away from James Madison, where he went 82-36 over the last four seasons, taking the Dukes to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year.
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“When you’re at different places you understand kind of the intensity with rivals and then the rivalry games,” Byington said this week. “And I’ve been a part of some good ones.
“Excited about this one, excited about, the fans, that the crowd, the energy and we can’t let that get caught up in us trying to perform our job and do the best we can there, but it’s going to be a great atmosphere.”
He won 131 games over seven seasons at Georgia Southern from 2013-20 and went 7-4 as interim head coach at College of Charleston during the 2011-12 season.
Rick Barnes on Vanderbilt: ‘They’re very aggressive. They create a lot of havoc’
Byington overhauled the Vanderbilt roster with nine transfers, adding Hoggard alongside Tyler Nickel (Virginia Tech), MJ Collins (Virginia Tech), Chris Manon (Cornell), Jason Edwards (North Texas), Grant Huffman (Davidson), Jaylen Carey (James Madison), Davin McGlockton (Boston College) and Alex Hemenway (Clemson).
“I think he’s done a great job going into the portal quickly and getting guys the way he wants to play,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said before practice on Friday. “They’re very aggressive. They create a lot of havoc. A really heavy, heavy gap team that they really go for steals. They really turn you over. And I’m impressed with what he’s done. I really am.
“And I’m not surprised just the little bit I’ve been around him, you can tell he believes in what he wants to do and how he wants to play and being able to do what he’s done up to this point is really — he deserves a lot of credit for a lot of it.”
