MSU next season? Booker’s in, Hoggard undecided
Chris Solari
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Xavier Booker sounded resolute in remaining with Michigan State basketball.
A.J. Hoggard and Mady Sissoko plan to take some time to process what comes next.
In the aftermath of the ninth-seeded Spartans’ season-ending 85-69 loss to No. 1 seed North Carolina on Saturday in the second round of the NCAA tournament, a number of decisions for next year’s roster and coach Tom Izzo are ahead.
Three fourth-year seniors — Hoggard, Sissoko and former walk-on Davis Smith — have one year of eligibility remaining thanks to the 2020-21 NCAA waiver from their freshman season. They are among the last group in college basketball with that option available.
Hoggard, who last year tested the NBA draft process before returning to MSU, had just three points on 1-for-10 shooting against the Tar Heels. The 6-foot-4, 210-pound point guard from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, averaged 10.7 points, 3.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists this season while shooting 40.7% overall and 34.7% from 3-point range.
“I haven’t really thought about it yet,” Hoggard said about his fifth season of eligibility. “I guess I’ll start doing that after the healing process from this last loss.”
Sissoko struggled throughout the season. He started 26 of the Spartans’ first 30 games but came off the bench in the past five. That included a strong finishing stretch for the 6foot-9, 250-pound center with seven rebounds in 10 scoreless minutes against Purdue, nine rebounds and two points in 17 minutes Thursday in MSU’s NCAA-opening win over Mississippi State and four points and three rebounds in 8:23 against UNC.
“I haven’t thought about it yet, so I got (some) time to talk about, so I got (some) time to talk about it ...,” said Sissoko, a native of Mali,
West Africa, who averaged 3.3 points and 5.1 rebounds this season. “It obviously wasn’t great season for me, myself. And this team went through a lot of tough times. In a lot of ways, we did a good thing and we didn’t quit.”
Smith, a 6-foot guard and the son of Spartan basketball legend Steve Smith, hit a 3pointer against Mississippi State and two critical free throws at the end of the first half of a win at Michigan in February. He previously entered the transfer portal after the 2021-22 season but returned to MSU for the past two seasons.
“I think Mady was set to stay and finish out. A.J., I think, was set to go from the beginning — he’s a year older, as we all know. And Davis, he’s trying to figure out what he wants to get into,” Izzo said Saturday in the hallway outside of the Spartans’ locker room at Spectrum Center. “But I’ll sit down with all those guys and we’ll talk and try to help them get where they want to get, for sure. For sure.”
While Booker is only a freshman, the current transfer portal era coupled with his limited playing time early caused fans to speculate whether he would leave MSU. Izzo started giving the 6-11 forward more and more minutes and two starts over the course of the final eight games. Booker had five points and five rebounds in 14:08 against UNC on Saturday.
Afterward, as he sat in front of his locker, the Indianapolis native and five-star recruit was asked about his future with the Spartans. “I’m coming back for sure,” Booker said. In 27 games in his debut season, Booker averaged 3.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in 9.3 minutes, making 43.9% of his shots and hitting 16 of 48 3-point attempts. He posted 4.4 points and 1.8 rebounds while logging 11 minutes a game over his last eight.
“Obviously, some parts of it didn’t go as well as I wanted it to,” Booker said. “But at some point, you have to learn to face adversity. So I don’t think I would change the stuff that I went through earlier in the season. I mean, I feel like that’s all part of God’s plan, it’s all part of the process . ...
“You just gotta make the most of minutes that you get when you go on the floor, because you never know how many minutes you’re gonna get. So just make sure you make the most out of all that you get.”
Also part of the new reality for Izzo is that his program could lose anyone from the roster or add players at any time with the portal. Last year, Pierre Brooks II left MSU and transferred to Butler. Izzo’s best players the past two seasons, Joey Hauser (Marquette) and Tyson Walker (Northeastern), were inbound transfers.
And Izzo sounded nowhere near prepared to step away.
“I don’t like the way I’m giving in to the fact that the world has changed, so I can blame it on that,” the Hall of Fame coach said after the conclusion of his 29th season as MSU’s head coach. “The world has changed. Not for the better, if you asked this Yooper. But it is what it is, and I gotta do what I got to do to make sure that I correct the things that I need to correct.
“So motivated? Yeah, I am motivated. Excited? I am excited. I’m not burned out. I just I feel bad for that. I feel bad that I couldn’t have gotten through to some of those guys earlier, because I really think they understand it better now. I really do.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com . Follow him @chrissolari .