Michigan State basketball's A.J. Hoggard: 'I gotta step up' or 'you should bench me'

CHICAGO — A.J. Hoggard walked into locker room and quickly found Tom Izzo, in the same building where Michigan State basketball made a quick exit from the Big Ten tournament eight months earlier. After coming off the same United Center floor where the two had a heated discussion after Izzo pulled his point guard.

This time, after the Spartans suffered another loss to nemesis Duke in the Champions Classic, after another lackluster shooting performance, after another poor game from Hoggard, the conversation in private went much differently.

“The first thing A.J. says is, ‘If I don't play better, you should bench me. This is ridiculous,’” Izzo retold in the wake of No. 19 MSU’s 74-65 loss to the ninth-ranked Blue Devils on Tuesday night.

It was a confession Izzo appreciated, but one the Hall of Fame head coach feels applies to all of his guards three games into a season starting to deviate wildly from preseason expectations for his backcourt.

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“Guys just kind of have to step up to the plate,” said Hoggard, who finished 1-for-8 with eight assists, four rebounds and two turnovers. “We’re three games (in) and seeing how it's going. The guys that haven't been playing as well — me, myself, just speaking for me, I gotta step up. I'm a senior now. I've been in big games before, so I just gotta be better for my guys.”

That, in Izzo’s eyes, showed individual progress. But the issue isn’t a singular problem, though. Neither is it solely about Hoggard, with a team that is struggling in the paint as much as it is on the perimeter.

Yet finding a way to get Hoggard, Jaden Akins, Tre Holloman and, yes, even Tyson Walker going offensively is Izzo’s primary concern as the Spartans (1-2) return home to face Butler on Friday as part of the Gavitt Games (6:30 p.m./FS1).

“We had a hell of a summer and fall shooting the ball. And right now, we're not shooting the ball that well,” Izzo said after falling to 3-14 all-time against the Blue Devils (2-1). “So I'm not going to sit here and cry about it. I'm going to say we got to play better, we got to make better shots. We did a lot of good things tonight. We just didn't make shots.”

Walker’s concern is getting himself going earlier and not being passive in the first half, scoring 18 of his 22 points after MSU fell behind by 11 at halftime. Akins has shown himself to be a much stronger and more ferocious rebounder, but his outside shot and attacking abilities on offense are suffering.

Hoggard, meanwhile, at times finds himself too sped up and regressing, including one attempted behind-the-back dribble in the paint that was stolen and went the other way for a Duke score midway through the second half. The turnover stopped the Spartans’ momentum and helped Duke regain a double-digit lead.

MSU is now 8-for-50 (16%) from 3-point range through three games. Walker hit three of four 3-point tries in the second half, helping the Spartans twice come back from 11-point holes, after missing his only deep attempt before halftime. Hoggard and Holloman both missed their two good looks from outside, and Akins went 1-for-4.

“We shot 1-for-20 (against James Madison), 1-for-11 (against Southern Indiana) and then 6-for-19 (against Duke). If we make shots, it's totally different,” said Walker, who was just 2-for-5 for four points at half. “We missed a lot of open shots. ... If we make three more open shots that led to (Duke) getting breakaways, it's a totally different game.”

After exploring the NBA draft in the spring, both Hoggard and Akins withdrew. Walker opted to use his extra year of eligibility. The starting backcourt decided to return from a team that went just 3-for-16 from 3-point range in the loss to the Buckeyes in the Big Ten tournament to making a Sweet 16 run behind their play.

Three games into their comeback run, the lofty goals of winning a national championship are firmly on hold. At least until they get things figured out.

“There's definitely frustration. We don't think we should be 1-2,” Walker said. “So we gotta get better. We're not playing right away right now. So we just got to do better. … Being aggressive, making shots, cutting out every time, rebounding every time. Just moving the ball when it should be moved.”

Inside, the Spartans center duo of Mady Sissoko and Carson Cooper struggled against the size, length and athleticism of Duke’s big men. Sissoko went just 1-for-4 for two points with three turnovers and only three rebounds. Cooper was 1-for-3 for four points and tied Akins for a game-high eight rebounds, but the sophomore also fouled out while struggling to defend Kyle Filipowski. MSU kept the Blue Devils’ 7-footer in check for the first half but Filipowski had 10 of his 15 points and six of his eight rebounds in the second half.

“I felt like our centers did an unbelievable job the first 15 minutes on those ball screens,” Izzo said. “And then for some reason, (they) did not get up as much.”

This is the first time MSU has started 1-2 since the 2016-17 season, when the first two defeats came against Arizona and Kentucky. That team, though, was freshman-loaded with Miles Bridges, Cassius Winston and Co. It made the NCAA tournament and lost in the second round to Kansas.

The previous 1-2 start before that, in 2011-12, MSU opened with losses to North Carolina and Duke. That group, in Draymond Green's senior year, was a veteran squad that recovered to win a Big Ten title but lost in the Sweet 16.

Izzo also opened 1-2 in 2005-06 and his debut season of 1995-96. If this year’s team wants to make a deep run at Izzo’s ninth Final Four, it would be the first to do so with a losing record after the first three games.

“I feel like we dropped the one against James Madison, and everyone's kind of writing us off,” Hoggard said. “But that's just Michigan State basketball. We're gonna fight and continue to fight, we're never going to give up. We just gotta figure out a way to continue to make shots and shoot it better, and we'll be fine.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball's A.J. Hoggard laments: 'I gotta step up'