Hinnen: Why Johni Broome should be the National Player of the Year
This award is about *college* basketball, not who's going to be the best pro. And Broome is the best player on the most important team.
This is another guest column from longtime friend of the newsletter Jerry Hinnen. Jerry is Auburn blogging royalty, from his days running the Joe Cribbs Car Wash to his work at CBS Sports and The War Eagle Reader.
Here’s Jerry on why Johni Broome should be the National Player of the Year in college basketball. In case you missed it earlier this month, here’s Jerry on why Auburn fans should embrace the national title talk for these Tigers:
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
If daggers had mothers, it would’ve been a dagger only a mother — and the hundreds of orange-and-blue-clad witnesses inside Coleman Coliseum — could love.
No. 1 Auburn led No. 2 Alabama by a score of 86-78 with just 78 seconds remaining in men’s college basketball’s Game of the Year and Also the Entire Regular-Season History of the Southeastern Conference.
Johni Broome collected the ball in the low post, his back to the basket, the Crimson Tide’s Mouhamed Dioubate defending him.
Worried about Broome’s ability to pass out of the double team, Nate Oats left Dioubate to guard him 1-on-1 — and likely still feels justified in that decision.
Broome took one dribble towards his left, then spun back towards his right into the center of the lane, banging into Dioubate once, then twice.
The two collided a third time as Broome went up for the shot, but with no whistle coming and Dioubate having yielded only a couple of feet of post position, Broome was left to attempt an off-balance, 5-foot hook-slash-floater.
Unless you are one of the strongest, most skilled players in America, this is decidedly not an analytics-friendly shot. This wasn’t Broome putting Dioubate in the spin cycle for an easy layup. It wasn’t Broome bulldozing him under the rim. It wasn’t Broome nailing a Nowitzki-esque fadeaway jumper in his eyehole.
After 33 minutes on the court against one of the fastest-paced, most demanding opponents in college hoops — many of those minutes in obvious discomfort after re-tweaking his injured ankle in the second half — Broome wasn’t ever aiming for pretty.
But ugly daggers are daggers all the same. Broome’s bucket put the Tigers up 10, and even a clutch of missed free throws from the big man himself in the final minute were never going to put a lead that large that late in jeopardy.
Poor Dioubate got hit with the “too small” coming back upcourt after Broome’s bucket, because of course he was.
But his problem wasn’t being too small. His problem was that his opponent was too crafty, too strong, too experienced, too determined, too damn good to not make the game-icing shot.
Sometimes you do everything you can do and lose anyway, because your problem is Johni Broome.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Let’s not waste time: to argue “Johni Broome should be named the men’s college basketball Division I National Player of the Year” is to argue, specifically, “Johni Broome deserves to be named the men’s college basketball Division I National Player of the Year over Cooper Flagg.”
The Duke freshman and the Auburn fifth-year senior have put so much distance between themselves and the field this season that any statistic, any honor, cited on one’s behalf is, by definition, a comparison point to wield against the other.
It’s not possible to argue “here’s why Broome deserves it” without simultaneously arguing “and that’s why Flagg deserves it less.”
The either/or nature of the race means both Tiger and Blue Devil fans face the temptation to tear down the other team’s candidate more than build theirs up — a dynamic that in two-player NBA MVP races has led online supporters into “actually, when you watch him, Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t really that athletic” theater-of-the-absurd territory.
And make no mistake: it would be convenient for Auburn fans if Flagg’s candidacy really was exclusively a product of ESPN-inflated Duke hype, the pillow fight that is this season’s ACC “gauntlet,” and the open salivating from NBA Draft followers.
But we’re not going to waste time with that, either: Cooper Flagg is an absolutely awesome college basketball player.
Averaging a 20-8-4-1-2 as an 18-year-old freshman would be staggering production if Flagg played in the SWAC, but he’s doing it as the two-way cornerstone of a Duke team with some of the strongest power metrics since power metrics were invented.
Forget the Flagg NPOY campaign being media-driven hot air. For those of us who remember the last time Duke had the consensus No. 1 pick on a national-title contender, Flagg and the Devils might, incredibly, be underhyped.
One look at KenPom’s player of the year metric should tell you that Flagg is every bit as good as his reputation. In most seasons he’d be the deserving runaway Player of the Year.
But this isn’t most seasons. Because this season includes this Auburn team, and this Auburn team includes Johni Broome.
And it’s Broome who should be honored as the National Player of the Year.
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