This Final Four must captivate Charles Barkley.
No. 1 Auburn, Barkley’s alma mater, enjoys a shot at its first national championship, and Tigers big man Johni Broome has a path toward becoming the greatest player in program history.
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That’s straight from Chuck’s mouth.
“If he’s able to win a championship, I’d say he’s the greatest player in Auburn history. … He’s better than me in college,” Barkley, widely viewed as the current designee for best Auburn hoopster ever, said on CBS before Auburn’s first-round game.
I’m not so sure Broome shouldn’t already hold Auburn basketball’s GOAT distinction, regardless of what happens in San Antonio.
Charles Barkley or Johni Broome in greatest Auburn basketball player debate
Barkley is Auburn royalty. Nothing will change that. He became the SEC’s player of the year in 1984 while leading Auburn to its first NCAA Tournament appearance. The tournament included 48 teams then. Richmond upset Auburn in the first round, despite Barkley’s 23 points and 17 rebounds.
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Great as Barkley was at Auburn, legendary though he became in the NBA and beloved though he is on the Plains – a statue honoring Barkley greets fans outside Neville Arena – Broome became Auburn’s first consensus All-America selection in program history. He’s rivaling Duke’s Cooper Flagg for national player of the year honors. Sporting News tapped Broome for the designation.
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Broome polished his place in Auburn history in the Elite Eight, after he headed to the locker room in the second half with an elbow injury.
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Was Broome done for the game? Done for the tournament? Nope. He returned to provide Auburn with an emotional lift and drilled a 3-pointer to help finish off Michigan State.
Twenty-five points. Fourteen rebounds. Clutch 24-footer while nursing an injured elbow.
That’s GOAT-like. Broome’s teammates won’t argue.
“It’s No. 4,” teammate Denver Jones told the Opelika-Auburn News, referencing Broome’s jersey number, when asked his opinion on Auburn’s GOAT debate. “You ain’t see him hurt his elbow, come back, hit his first 3?”
Debates like this one that compare players from different eras lack a definitive answer, and Chuck Person deserves a place in this conversation, too, but here’s what should be undeniable: Broome’s season, his Elite Eight performance and Auburn’s Final Four run cement him as an Auburn basketball legend.
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To win a national championship, Auburn will call on Broome to combat a basketball cliché.
Guards rule March Madness. Does cliché apply to Auburn and Johni Broome?
Guards win in March. That’s the saying, formed on the backs of March Madness performances by championship-winning guards like Baylor’s Jared Butler, Villanova’s Jalen Brunson and UConn’s Shabazz Napier. Cinderella guards such as Butler’s Shelvin Mack and Davidson’s Steph Curry influenced the narrative of the modern NCAA Tournament, too. It’s a guard’s game in March.
Yeah, and what about April? Well, guards tend to thrive, too.
The Tigers don’t lack for good guards. Chad Baker-Mazara, Tahaad Pettiford, Miles Kelly and Jones provide Broome with a nice supporting cast. Pettiford and Kelly shouldered the scoring load in the tournament’s first two rounds, while Broome experienced quiet scoring outputs, by his lofty standards.
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But Broome remains the team’s catalyst. If there were doubts about whether he was wearing down, his monster performances against Michigan and Michigan State silenced them.
“Just keep doubting him,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after the Michigan State win, “and keep thinking that he’s not going to be able to get to another gear.”
Big men have influenced national championships in this era, but you must look back a bit to find a champion that started its engine with a big man.
Purdue tried to pull it off last season with Zach Edey. The Boilermakers were so geared around Edey, their system could be described as: Feed Edey and everyone else stand around the perimeter in case of kick-out 3-pointers.
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That worked until UConn’s ensemble proved too much for Purdue in the national championship, despite Edey’s 37 points.
Auburn’s cast of guards outclasses what Purdue assembled around Edey, but the best guards are found elsewhere in this Final Four. Florida and Houston ooze premier guards. Florida’s clutch dynamo, Walter Clayton Jr., has become one of the tournament’s top stories.
As for big men, Duke’s freshman frontcourt of Flagg and Kon Knueppel powers the Blue Devils, but the do-it-all, score-from-anywhere Flagg is not a prototypical big man in Broome’s mold.
North Carolina won the national championship in 2017 with a frontcourt-fueled roster featuring Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks, three starting forwards who stood 6-foot-8 or taller and averaged in double-figures scoring. Two years before that, Duke won the national title with 6-foot-11 center Jahlil Okafar and power forward Justise Winslow forming the head of the snake.
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Kentucky’s 6-foot-10 center Anthony Davis stood tall not only for big men, but for the diaper-dandy trend that ruled college basketball when the Wildcats won the national championship in 2012. Davis shot 1 for 10 from the field in the title win against Kansas, but he influenced the outcome with 16 rebounds and six blocks.
Broome stands the same height as Davis, but around Auburn, his game triggers Barkley comparisons.
“He just affects winning so much,” Pearl said.
He’s a big man good enough to challenge a March Madness cliché, while vying for the crown and scepter of Auburn basketball’s royal class.
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Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Johni Broome can pass Charles Barkley, blast cliché in Final Four
