Michigan State guard AJ Hoggard enters the NCAA Transfer Portal

Michigan State’s AJ Hoggard has entered his name into the transfer portal.

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.

However, it has seemingly been known that Hoggard would not be returning to the program next year. For one, he has been testing for the upcoming 2024 NBA Draft. For two, Tom Izzo made it pretty clear that Hoggard would not be back in an interview last week.

“Well, AJ’s down at the camp right now. Him and Tyson (Walker) are both down in Portsmouth,” Izzo said on ‘Staudt on Sports’. “AJ’s looking to make a pro career. But he could go back to college, it wouldn’t be here. I think it’s – we have some younger guys and he has exhausted his and he’ll graduate.”

“But I think he’d like to get into the pro ball. Whether it be Europe, whether it be the G-League. But nowadays, everybody will look at college, too, depending on offers from different places,” added Izzo. “There’s guys that I know that played in the Final Four and got $20,000 and there’s guys you’re hearing rumors getting $1 million and that’s – it’s so crazy that every kid is going to look differently at things and see what happens.”

In his career, Hoggard has averaged 8.6 points, 4.6 assists, and 2.8 rebounds. He did so while shooting 41% from the field and 30.3% from deep.

As a main contributor as an upperclassman the past two years, Hoggard posted 11.8 points, 5.6 assists, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.2 steals while shooting 41.2% overall and 33.8% from three.

Hoggard played high school basketball at Huntington Prep. He was a four-star prospect and the No. 74 overall recruit in the 2020 cycle. That’s according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He also rated as the No. 16 PG in the class and the No. 3 player out of West Virginia behind only Jaemyn Brakefield (Duke, Ole Miss) and Isaiah Cottrell (West Virginia, UNLV), both of which were high school teammates of his.

Hoggard is now the second player to transfer from Michigan State this offseason. C Mady Sissoko, who came in with Hoggard as the Spartans’ only two commitments in their No. 12 class in 2020, also entered the portal at the start of April.

As for additions from the portal, Izzo got a transfer commitment from Omaha’s Frankie Fidler earlier this week. Fidler averaged 16 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 45.4% overall and 35.6% from three in three seasons while with the Mavericks. That includes this past year as a junior where he had a career season at 20.1 points and 6.3 rebounds as First Team All-Summit.

Hoggard has been a key cog in the lineup for the Spartans over the last four years. Still, as Izzo predicted and Hoggard has since shown with this decision, he will be moving on elsewhere for his fifth season of college ball assuming he doesn’t continue his pursuit of the next level.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.