Coatesville native A.J. Hoggard – a senior at Huntington Prep, an elite, basketball-centric prep school in West Virginia – has announced that he will accept a scholarship to play college basketball at Michigan State.
ESPN ranks the Spartans as No. 1 team in America headed into this season.
Hoggard, who graduated from South Brandywine Middle School in the Coatesville Area School District, played his first two years of high school basketball at Archbishop Carroll in Radnor, before transferring to Huntington Prep.
The 6-foot-3, 185-pound point guard averaged 17.4 points and 5.0 assists per game last winter and is unanimously regarded by scouting services as one of the Top 100 recruits in the Class of 2020.
“The vibe that they have been giving me since Day One and how (Michigan State coach Tom) Izzo handles his guards, along with the production that they have had from the guard position,” Hoggard told Rivals.com as the basis for his commitment.
He chose the Spartans over Providence, Mississippi, and a number of other schools.
“Winning is everything to me, and I don’t like losing,” Hoggard said. “To come into a position where I have to make sure that I have my hard hat on every night to win games and bring the team wins, that is what I strive for each time that I step onto the floor: to win.”
Huntington Prep coach Arkell Bruce said that Michigan State is getting a player who is creative with the ball and uses his size to his advantage.
“He’s always been hard to guard, one of the better finishers around the basket in the country,” Bruce told MLive.com.
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