Mike White and his coaching staff have been absolute grinders on the recruiting trail in their time at Florida and it has resulted in some great gets in races where analysts had the Gators ruled out but they defied the odds. We could have another come from behind victory coming up soon with the Gators trending positively for point guard AJ Hoggard, the 71st ranked player in 2020 who has long been considered to be heading to Michigan State.
While Hoggard becoming a Spartan seemed to be a conclusion for the last several months a few weeks ago sources started whispering about the Gators really gaining momentum. He was on campus for the football game against Tennessee, a visit that by all accounts couldn’t have gone much better, and the resulting whispers became louder.
Hoggard is a physical point guard listed at 6’3” and 185 pounds though I’d suspect he’s a bit heavier. While he’s totally capable of playing bully ball and physically overmatching his competition that isn’t the focus of his game, instead it’s his incredible craft and ball handling prowess that has him padding stats, winning games, and making college coaches’ eyes light up. His incredibly advanced handle mixed with a high level of savvy allows him to shift defenders at will and he’s constantly getting into the paint where he can either finish with hop or euro steps and he’s one of the best passers in the class. You won’t often see a game where he doesn’t have a highlight reel no-look pass to a cutting big man and that vision would be welcomed in Gainesville where people have gotten used to elite passing point guards.
At 71st in the class he’s certainly getting respect but I think that number could be low and he could offer upside even greater than 71st overall. His fitness level certainly isn’t elite and for that reason he doesn’t have the burst or explosiveness a lot of higher ranked guards possess. All of the offensive skills are there so if he gets his body right he will vastly overplay that ranking.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Michigan State is the leader here. Tom Izzo has had great success with physical, intelligent, elite passing point guards over and over again and Hoggard projects to be exactly that player. The fact Izzo is so interested in Hoggard should show just what kind of player he is and if Coach White can land him his run of elite point guards should continue.
Hoggard announced that he’ll be making his decision on October 6th. This is extremely interesting as Niels Lane, another player the Gators are really in on, will be announcing on October 8th.
This is especially interesting because when Hoggard posted that he would be announcing October 6, Lane reposted the information on his Instagram making sure people knew it was two days before he was announcing. Could those two be headed to the same location? Let’s hope.
Florida got Hoggard’s last visit after he also went to Marquette. Providence has also been long in the mix and Ole Miss has made their presence felt but really it’s seeming like it’s down to the Gators and Spartans.
If the Gators were to land Hoggard and Lane their class would be instantly solid no matter who else joined and those two guards would make Florida even more enticing to PJ Hall who still seems to be leaning heavily in the Gators’ direction. That would make for a solid trio of players in the 2020 class as elite talents who all project to be multi-year players that could give the Gators some great production.
It’s high time for some commitments to roll in and AJ Hoggard could be the first so be sure to mark October 6th on your calendar.