Goodman: Is Johni Broome better than Charles Barkley?

This is an opinion column.

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Never mind making shots. The No.6 team in the country had a hard time inbounding the ball on Saturday night.

Auburn needed every possession in its 53-51 victory against Tennessee. A couple of them came thanks to side-out-of-bounds defensive turnovers, including that traveling call on the orange-clad Volunteers with 1:32 left in the game.

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes didn’t like the fact that Johni Broome grabbed Felix Okpara, forcing Okpara to take a couple extra steps with the ball, but the refs didn’t see the foul and neither did the fans hanging from the rafters of Neville Arena.

Did Broome get some help on that one? I’m not going to deny it, but sometimes that’s the way it goes in close games for elite players. Broome the Brilliant has earned every ounce of respect and by the final minutes of this one he looked like the Naismith College Player of the Year, too.

“He just affects winning so much,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “Such a leader.”

Broome maybe shouldn’t have played against Tennessee, but his injured ankle wasn’t keeping him out. He looked gimpy during warmups, but then put in 33 minutes of hard-hitting work in the most physical basketball game anyone has seen since the 1980s.

They’re so soft in the NBA these days. No one plays hard anymore. Everyone knows it. It’s an affront to the game of basketball. The college kids are making up for it, though, and they were digging trenches by end of this one.

“We won the battle of the boards against a great rebounding team,” Pearl said.

Mid-range was no man’s land. The paint went into concussion protocol after it was all over. Three-pointers should have counted for five, and they felt like 10 a pop. Combined, the Tigers and Vols went 4 of 22 from distance. It was beautiful carnage. The refs only called fouls for blood and broken bones.

And there was Broome in the middle of it all, the Lord of the SEC. This is his league and this is his time. He wasn’t healthy but he still came off the bench to lead everyone with 16 points and 13 rebounds.

He was a couple steps slower than normal, which makes the stat of the night all the more impressive. Broome finished the game with more offensive rebounds (seven) than defensive boards (six).

There are some excellent college players around the country, but the national player of the year is at Auburn. Broome’s game against Tennessee will resonate through March.

“I think the team really respected their leader for putting it on the line,” Pearl said.

It was cramped and stuffy in the media room after the game. About three times as many reporters were standing up than sitting down. It felt like the Supper Club but for geeks.

“We’re going to need a bigger room,” said Pearl as he maneuvered through the crowd.

You thought the arena was packed? The media room felt like a subway ride full of meat sweats.

I asked Broome to put a percentage on his ankle. How bad?

“Good enough to play,” he said, and everyone laughed.

Fans get a prominent voice with my weekly mailbag column. It’s fun and people enjoy it. One consistent theme that I hear from week to week is a disdain for the current NIL era of collegiate athletics. Love it or hate it, we do know for a fact that basketball has never been better in the SEC thanks to the game’s new financial mechanisms.

Broome could be in the NBA. Instead, he returned to college for his senior season. The game is better for it and college hoops in the SEC is a showcase every night. Broome will rest after he’s drafted. There are no freebies in this league. Everything is earned and, make no mistake, Broome is cashing checks.

Auburn has already won four games this season that came down to the final possession. Good because we all remember what happened against Yale in last year’s first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“All those close games we’ve had,” Broome said. “It shows the grit of this team.”

Broome demands it and leads by example. He’s the best player in college basketball even after two weeks off and a bum ankle.

How good is No.4 for Auburn?

There’s a statue outside of Neville Arena of an all-time player, but Broome might be even better than Charles Barkley.

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Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”