Auburn’s Johni Broome made a statement in the National POY race on Saturday
Head coach Bruce Pearl turned to Broome in hopes of avoiding an upset last Saturday, and he delivered.
Very few teams have a player who can step up at any point in a game and take control. Auburn has that luxury in senior forward Johni Broome.
Broome has consistently outperformed his competition this season and has stepped up in key moments to push his team to victory. The most recent example of this took place last Saturday in No. 1 Auburn’s 82-70 win over Georgia when he scored a season-high 31 points with 14 rebounds and four assists. Auburn held a 29-24 halftime advantage despite Broome’s 12-point, six-rebound performance. Broome turned up the intensity in the second half by scoring 19 points and pulling in eight more rebounds to help the Tigers escape with a 12-point win.
Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl says that Broome provided plenty of evidence to make a case to earn Player of the Year in Saturday’s win.
“Well, that’s why (Broome is) Player of the Year,” Pearl said Saturday. “Unbelievable poise. He plays at a great pace offensively, and the fact that he’s patient, calculating, and the fact that he attacked the rim like he did in this game so much. I mean, that was the biggest difference at the end of the day. We had 4 and they didn’t. And 4 played pretty good tonight.”
The race for National Player of the Year is believed to be a two-person competition between Broome and Duke‘s Cooper Flagg. Flagg has the advantage in points per game with 19.5 points per game. However, Broome averages a double-double with 18.6 points and 11.1 boards per contest. Flagg has seven double-doubles while Broome has 17. Flagg has 13 games of scoring 20 or more points and Broome has 15. Flagg’s top performance of the season was a 42-point, six-rebound effort in Duke’s 86-78 win over Notre Dame on Jan. 11 while Broome’s 31-point, 14-rebound game at Georgia last Saturday is arguably his greatest to this point of the season.
Two weeks remain in the regular season, and the race between Broome and Flagg will be entertaining to watch unfold.
