ATLANTA — A heavy Auburn crowd, loud and raucous all game inside State Farm Arena, suddenly fell quiet.
Johni Broome, the Auburn star and SEC Player of the Year, was grimacing on the floor, holding his right arm. It looked bad, both in the short term against Michigan State and, should they survive the night, in the long term for the No. 1 seed Tigers’ greater championship hopes.
The tension felt like it wouldn’t ever let up, cut up only by a young boy close to courtside yelling, with a deep Southern accent, “Hope you’re Oh-kay, Johni.” As Broome walked off the court into the locker room, he mouthed “I’m done” to his teammates.
Auburn had dominated the game from the start, led by Broome’s 20 points and 12 rebounds in the first 30 minutes of the game, but it felt potentially perilous without Broome against Tom Izzo’s Spartans that were never going to give up. The Tigers held a 10-point lead with less than 11 minutes left in the game, but could it hold up against a charging Jase Richardson and Co.?
Izzo was no doubt begging that it wouldn’t, but there was no panic from Auburn. The Tigers had been in this position before. No, it wasn’t with a Final Four on the line, but Broome went down in the second half against South Carolina on Jan. 11 with a sprained left ankle and the Tigers still rallied to beat the Gamecocks. Auburn won its next two games, both against ranked SEC opponents, giving the team confidence it could book a ticket to San Antonio even without its star big man.
“Our guys were more worried if he was OK and less so are we going to be able to win without him,” said Auburn associate head coach Steven Pearl. “We knew we could beat Michigan State without him.”
2025 Final Four: Evaluating Duke vs. Houston, Florida vs. Auburn as March Madness reaches final weekend
Cameron Salerno …
..
