ATLANTA — Johni Broome left Sunday’s South region final with just under 11 minutes left in the game, with Auburn leading Michigan State 50-40. The ensuing five minutes and eight seconds of game clock were surely the longest of Auburn basketball fans’ lives. And when Broome walked back out through the tunnel and over to Auburn’s bench, Tiger fans thundered their joy … and, more importantly, Auburn’s lead still stood at 10.
Five minutes of game clock later, Auburn fans could exhale at a 70-64 victory, secured even as Broome was clearly at far less than 100 percent. He’d hit the ground hard midway through the second half fighting for a defensive rebound, and hyperextended both his left knee and his right elbow. And all of a sudden, what had been one of the most glorious afternoons The Plains had experienced since the days of Cam Newton turned tense.
Johni Broome is down in noticeable pain pic.twitter.com/fLVg6m91ok
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Broome’s superlatives are legion and growing — centerpiece of the No. 1 Auburn Tigers attack, top Player of the Year candidate, and now South region Most Outstanding Player. But all those accolades won’t get Auburn a single point in the Final Four, and the unsettling drop in volume in State Farm Arena as Broome sat on the court holding his elbow and gingerly touching his ankle indicated that the Tiger fans understood that reality all too well.
Those fans breathed a touch easier when Broome got to his feet and walked toward the bench without assistance. But he was shaking his head “no” as he went, and kept on walking straight toward the locker room.
“You might have to finish this,” Broome told teammates Chaney Johnson and Dylan Cardwell before he left.
It’s to Auburn’s immense credit that the Tigers did exactly that, keeping pace with Michigan State during the uncertain minutes that Broome was back in the locker room. Although they hadn’t shown it much on Sunday, the Spartans had the power to throw some lockdown defense onto the Tigers, and a 10-point lead could have shrunk to one possession in a hurry.
But Auburn held strong; Johnson banked in two shots and Chad Baker-Mazara drilled a long 3-pointer. And when Broome walked out of the locker room, the heavily pro-Auburn crowd surged with grateful joy.
“Are you good to go?” head coach Bruce Pearl asked Broome on the sideline.
“I am,” he replied.
“Well, get your ass in there!” Seconds later, ...
