Tom Izzo, A.J. Hoggard often at odds. Michigan State basketball's win shows it's worth it.

EAST LANSING — A.J. Hoggard isn’t a shooter.

But he didn’t hesitate from the corner Saturday when he hit the biggest 3-pointer of the game.

He isn’t always a consistent defender.

But his swipe of Marcus Damask’s pass with just under two minutes helped seal Michigan State basketball’s come-from-behind win over Illinois Saturday afternoon at the Breslin Center.

The senior point guard played his best game of the season at a critical point of the season: Although MSU wasn't necessarily a bubble team entering Saturday — NCAA tourney projections put them in the 7-11 seed range — a loss would’ve tilted them toward that dangerous place.

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He’ll get credit for his 23 points and timely buckets — he followed his 3 with an old-fashioned three-point play over a 6-10 big to tie the game at 72 with 4 minutes left. And he should — the Spartans don’t win without his late-game scoring, which he couldn’t provide at Minnesota earlier in the week.

His coach, though, can live with off shooting nights. He can’t live with uneven defensive intensity and effort or, worse, a lack of focus.

Tom Izzo called Hoggard out after Tuesday night’s loss in Minneapolis. Then he spent a couple of days getting into his point guard behind the scenes.

“You wouldn't have wanted to be a part of it,” Hoggard said, smiling. “He's just a caring guy that knows what we can do.”

That Hoggard was smiling as he recalled his coach’s displeasure tells us Hoggard is built to take it. A good thing, because Izzo has been on him for years.

For four years, more specifically, as Izzo pointed out during his postgame availability.

“Today, you see why,” he said.

MSU goes as Hoggard goes, for better or for worse. But the better ain’t bad at all, as he showed last year when he pushed the Spartans to the Sweet 16 (and to within a basket of the Elite Eight). When he plays with force and focus and makes the decisions a senior point guard should make, MSU can play with anybody — and maybe beat anybody, too.

He has that in him. No, not 23 points a game. But timely scores? Critical defensive plays? Check and check. Beyond that, he has the most infectious swag on the team. There is something about his two-way, all-court focus that lifts this group in a way that even Tyson Walker’s scoring binges can’t.

Oh, Walker’s essential, clearly, and without his end-of-the-shot clock brilliance the Spartans might be worse than a bubble team, as they showed Tuesday while scuffling in his absence for five minutes against Minnesota. (He said the groin injury he suffered is better now, and that his noticeable limp Saturday is just how he walks: “I’m from New York, I just walk with a limp.”)

Yet MSU wouldn't have worried so much about Walker’s pains at Minnesota had Hoggard played the way he played Saturday. It’s why Izzo was so disappointed in him and, frankly, in himself. Because he has tried everything the last four years to pull out consistency in Hoggard's game.

“Thought about it all night long,” he said of the night after the loss to Minnesota.

It’s not like Izzo's team is flawlessly constructed. MSU is smallish on the perimeter, especially the wing, and the center spot is so often a weakness. Against Illinois though, it was not: Carson Cooper and Jaxon Kohler combined for 36 solid minutes.

The Spartans can survive, even thrive, if the five spot is serviceable. As Izzo noted, “If we’re gonna win, we need that collection of centers to be good — not great, just good. And then we have those three guards.”

They’ve got a couple of interesting young pieces, as well. Freshman wing Coen Carr missed a dunk but huslted his way to a couple of loose balls and rebounds that provided extra possessions. His energy was easy to see. As for Xavier Booker?

“I’m telling you," Izzo said. "(He) will have his day.”

Jaden Akins might have had a day if not for foul trouble, but he had moments, including a couple of 3s that swung momentum. His second one blew the roof off the arena for a second until he turned around after he made the shot and glared at Illinois’ bench.

Officials immediately T'd him up for the gesture. Izzo was livid, mostly because he warned his team earlier that any demonstrative moment would earn a technical foul, and that the refs would be itching to call one to even out the technical foul for taunting against Coleman Hawkins in the first half.

“I gotta be smarter,” said Akins.

Maybe so, but it’d help if the refs hadn’t called either tech, or if they let the players enjoy themselves a little more. These are games of high stakes, after all, played before thousands; the players are asked to tap into every crevice of their soul to find full-throttle intensity.

That’s a tangent, though, and not one Ilinois coach Brad Underwood wanted to explore, and so he stopped himself when talking about the techs.

“We make the game no fun,” he said.

He has a point, even as this game was about as fun as regular-season college basketball can be. The Illini are long and athletic with shooters everywhere, and their shot-making kept MSU at bay for most of the game, especially from deep.

And when MSU found itself down eight with as Justin Harmon squared up another open three-pointer, the Spartans looked headed for another tough loss. But he missed. Walker made a couple of free throws. Then Hoggard hit his three and followed that with the and-1.

From there Malik Hall took over, scoring the next six points on a pair of three-point plays with layups from the post.

“He was a man down there,” said Izzo.

It helps that Hall is as healthy as he has been in years. His lift is back and has been since late December. And while he, too, struggled to make plays in the Minnesota loss, he has been better than not over the past month. When he plays as he did Saturday — 22 points on 7-for-9 shooting and five rebounds — well, the possibilities are tantalizing.

Hall gets overshadowed on this guard-dominant team; his contributions are sometimes lost because of what the center position doesn’t offer. Yet when he brings the force and shot-making, he is the compliment to the Hoggard-Walker-Akins trio.

The four of them have the makings of so many of Izzo’s teams that find their way into March runs. Four seniors and a junior — all difference-makers, all still learning how to focus and compete consistently.

The win over the Illini, Izzo said, “does give you an idea of what we can be.”

Just as the Minnesota loss gives him an idea of what they shouldn’t be.

It starts with the senior point guard, who lifts the ceiling — and lowers the floor — like no one else on the team. Saturday, he showed why — again.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State basketball can beat anyone if A.J. Hoggard is on