Johni Broome’s father didn’t even take the time to change out of his work clothes before driving to his son’s high school basketball practice and taking a seat in the bleachers.
He needed to see for himself why Johni’s extra work after practices hadn’t translated into more playing time. He needed to observe firsthand how his son compared as a sophomore to the upperclassmen who consistently played ahead of him.
For weeks, John Broome repeated this routine day after day. The more he watched, the more perplexed he became.
“I don’t know if he was doing it because I was there, but Johni was killing the starter,” John told Yahoo Sports. “He was killing him. The starter couldn’t guard him. After going to practices and seeing what was happening, I was like, naw, man this ain’t right.”
Stories like that exemplify the discrepancies that make this year’s college basketball player of the year race unusually compelling. Auburn’s Johni Broome, 22, and Duke’s Cooper Flagg, 18, have taken wildly different paths to the top of their sport, one constantly overlooked and undervalued and the other America’s most celebrated prospect since before he was old enough to obtain a driver’s license.
Flagg became USA Basketball’s youngest player of the year at age 15. Broome didn’t even start for his Tampa Bay-area high school team at the same age.
Flagg ascended from central Maine to the top of NBA draft boards while in high school. Broome finished as the nation’s 490th-ranked player in his high school class.
Flagg chose Duke over fellow juggernauts UConn and Kansas shortly before his final season of high school basketball. Broome signed with Morehead State, a school that he had never heard of until its coaches began recruiting him.
Though Flagg has fended off all challengers for the title of best prospect in college basketball, his grip on the title of best player in college basketball isn’t so tight. The national player of the year race is a true two-man duel between an 18-year-old freshman who has met supersized expectations and a 22-year-old fifth-year senior who has achieved more than anyone dreamed was possible.
Broome has elevated Auburn (25-2) to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 with his dominance in the paint. Flagg has lifted Duke (25-3) to No. 2 with his blend of competitive fire, skill and otherworldly athleticism. Now both are trading haymakers game-by-game in a player of the year battle that is still too close to call.
The way Morehead State coach Jonathan Mattox sees it, the only sure bet is how Broome will respond if he isn’t crowned player of the year.
“Cooper Flagg may win national player of the year and he may win it deservingly,” Mattox told Yahoo Sports, “but that will only drive Johni Broome even more.”
‘We just don’t think he can play for us’
Johni Broome grew up in a football-obsessed family known for producing pass rushers. His dad played defensive end. His older brother played defensive end. His cousin played defensive end. The expectation was that Johni would play defensive end, too.
Plans changed when Johni experienced a sudden growth spurt that made basketball a better fit for his body than football. He towered over the rest of his family by his sophomore year of high school, but he was slender as a sapling.
“He wasn’t looking like a 280-pound defensive end,” John Broome said. “He was shaped like a basketball player.”
To their credit, the Broomes pivoted quickly. John began working with Johni to help him learn to play the post. Father and son went deep into the night seeking to build Johni’s arsenal of jump hooks, drop steps and turnarounds.
While Broome made Plant City’s varsity team for the first time as a sophomore, the combination of his growth spurt and hard work did not result in instant stardom. He played sparingly off the bench for a veteran-laden 23-win team. When the rotation tightened against tougher opponents, he often didn’t get into the game at all.
Broome displayed “great work ethic even though he wasn’t getting the minutes that he wanted,” Plant City coach Billy Teeden told Yahoo Sports. Teeden hoped to prepare Broome to become Plant City’s top big man as a junior and senior.
“He was a skilled kid,” Teeden said. “He wasn’t overly athletic, but he had great hands, great feet. “I thought he was going to develop into a really good high school player and possibly play at the next level.”
For Broome, the next step in that transformation was a change in scenery. His parents sent him to Tampa Catholic High School, taking on an hour commute to and from campus in hopes that Broome could earn more playing time and showcase his talents.
Tampa Catholic coach Don Dziagwa prides himself on keeping abreast of the most promising young players in Hillsborough County. And yet Dziagwa admits he had never heard of Broome until a school administrator told him there was a 6-9 rising junior who was enrolling at Tampa Catholic with the intent of playing basketball.
“He just kind of fell on our doorstep,” Dziagwa told Yahoo Sports.
Broome averaged 15.5 points and 10.5 rebounds as a junior and earned Hillsborough County player of the year honors as a senior, but it hardly produced a recruiting frenzy. He didn’t make the first top-tier AAU team he tried out for. Adidas-affiliated Team Florida did offer Broome a roster spot, but another big man typically started over him.
When college coaches took the time to scout Broome, questions persisted about whether his game would translate at the next level. Even coaches at the mid-major level were squeamish about Broome’s slender physique, unremarkable athleticism and lack of a 3-point shot.
Florida Atlantic took an interest, but the Owls gave Broome’s spot to another big man before he had a chance to commit.
South Florida, located eight miles from Tampa Catholic, never extended a scholarship offer at all.
“They must have been at three or four of our practices and games,” Dziagwa said. “They told me, ‘Coach, we just don’t think he’s got the quickness. We just don’t think he’s got the leaping ability. We just don’t think he can play for us.’”
Inside, John Broome seethed, but for the sake of his son, he forced himself to slap on a smile.
“You just keep your head down and keep working,” he told Johni. “Eventually the offers will come.”
Johni blooms
The program that proved that right was an Eastern Kentucky school best known for producing former Denver Nuggets first-round pick Kenneth Faried.
Coaches from Morehead State came to evaluate Broome at an Adidas-sponsored grassroots tournament in April of his junior year of high school. Head coach Prestin Spradlin and assistant Dominic Lombardi came away intrigued by the willowy center’s velcro-like hands, touch around the rim and knack for thinking quickly and making the proper read.
Broome signed with Morehead State in December of his senior year of high school. Only Morehead State, Bryant and Jacksonville had offered him a scholarship at that time. Morehead State was the only school he visited.
Credit Morehead State for a shrewd evaluation, but as Jonathan Mattox admits, “If anybody tells you they envisioned what Johni would become, they’re lying.” Mattox, then an assistant under Spradlin and now Morehead State’s head coach, told Yahoo Sports that when Broome arrived on campus in June 2020, “there was some talk amongst our staff about do we redshirt him?”
Morehead State redshirting a future first-team All-American sounds insane now, but it wasn’t at the time. Not only did Broome need time to pack on muscle, center was also Morehead State’s deepest position at the time.
Mattox’s first inkling that Broome could be ready sooner than expected came when he played 1-on-1 against projected starting center Tyzhaun Claude during his first practice. Broome “more than held his own,” Mattox recalls, competing against a stronger, more experienced big man who later transferred to Georgia Tech and North Carolina.
“That was when we knew Johni was maybe a little better than we thought,” Mattox said.
The timetable for Broome sped up when Claude landed wrong during a rebounding drill days before Morehead State’s season opener. Claude tore an ACL and other knee ligaments, sidelining him for the season and thrusting Broome into the starting lineup.
Over the next two years, Broome seized his long-awaited opportunity and used it as a launching point for his career. Converting every slight from his high school days into fuel, Broome earned Ohio Valley Conference freshman of the year honors and dragged Morehead State to its first NCAA tournament bid in a decade. Then he became even more dominant the following year as an interior scorer, rebounder and rim protector.
By the time he entered the transfer portal in spring 2022, Broome was no longer a recruiting afterthought. He was the best big man available by many estimations. Kentucky, Duke and Louisville all wanted him. So did Gonzaga, Florida, Auburn and Houston.
As Broome weighed his options, Mattox tried to offer a reality check. During a heart-to-heart chat in Broome’s Morehead State dorm room, Mattox pointed out how much competition for playing time there was at some of the top-tier programs Broome was considering.
“Are you OK with going to Kentucky and averaging eight points a game? Mattox asked.
The sneer that Broome gave Mattox in response has stuck with the Morehead State coach for nearly three years.
“He looked at me like I was crazy,” Mattox said with a chuckle. “He never once thought he was going to go to a high-level program to be a 20-minute-a-game guy.”
‘Now he is what he thought he could be’
On a weekday morning in April 2022, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl and his son Steven boarded a charter flight to a tiny speck of an airport outside Morehead, Kentucky.
The airport was too small to offer rental cars, but a maintenance worker agreed to drive Bruce and Steven into town in his red pickup truck.
By that time, Broome had narrowed his list to a pair of SEC powerhouses, Auburn and Florida. He wanted to demonstrate that he wasn’t a big fish in a small pond, that he could duplicate the numbers he produced at Morehead State in, as his dad puts it, “the biggest, the toughest, the meanest league in the country.”
The purpose of the visit from Bruce and Steven Pearl was to persuade Broome that Auburn was the best platform for him to prove himself. Auburn had just lost standout forward Jabari Smith and center Walker Kessler to the NBA Draft. Broome was the lone available big man that the Pearls coveted as a potential replacement.
Over a meal at a Cracker Barrel near the Morehead State campus, Bruce and Steven made their final pitch. They told Broome that they had liked his game since scouting him in advance of a season-opening matchup with Morehead State the previous November. They told him that there was ample available playing time in the Auburn frontcourt without Smith and Kessler. They told him they envisioned him filling Kessler’s rim-protecting role on defense but having the freedom on offense to display his ever-increasing range as a perimeter shooter.
The spiel appealed to Broome, but he wasn’t ready to commit on the spot. He told the Pearls that he needed more time to decide, an outcome that kept Auburn in a holding pattern as other potential big man options committed elsewhere.
“If you actually do come, I’m going to make your a** run so many suicides for making us wait this long,” Steven remembers his dad joking to Broome.
On the way back to the airport, Bruce was discouraged.
“We’re not getting him,” he told Steven. “I think he’s going to Florida.”
The following Saturday, while Bruce and Steven were attending a wedding outside Atlanta, Broome called to say that his choice was Auburn.
“We definitely celebrated that night,” Steven told Yahoo Sports with a laugh.
The impact of that phone call still reverberates through the Auburn program three years later. In his debut season, Broome helped keep the Tigers nationally relevant despite all the frontcourt talent they lost. In his second season, Broome evolved from an all-conference level player into an All-American. This year, the fifth-year senior has elevated his level of play once more, spearheading Auburn’s ascent to No. 1 in the AP Top 25.
The numbers that Flagg and Broome have produced so far this season are comparable. As a freshman, Flagg puts up 19.4 points per game and leads national title-contending Duke in every major statistical category. Broome has averaged 18.6 points and 11.1 rebounds while also leading Auburn in assists and blocked shots.
Ask anyone at Auburn what sets Broome apart, and they’ll all point to the gauntlet of a schedule that the Tigers have played. Between a loaded non-league schedule and a historically strong SEC, Auburn has played in 16 Quadrant 1 games so far this season and has won 14 of them. Duke has faced an easier road, running over a watered-down ACC that could produce as few as three or four NCAA tournament bids.
“When you look at what Johni has had to do and the competition he has had to do it against, I really don’t think there’s a comparison,” Steven Pearl said. “The league that we play in might be the best league in the history of college basketball and Johni is competitive if not better than Cooper in every category. That should give Johni an edge in that race.”
Confidence, those close to Broome say, is the biggest difference between previous iterations of Broome and the national player of the year candidate we see today. He’s dominant as a post-up big, he’s a menace on the glass and he has shown no hesitation firing away from 3-point range. As his mom, Julie Broome, recently put it, “Now he is what he thought he could be.”
That fifth-year senior swagger was on display after a 31-point performance in a victory over Georgia last Saturday. The ESPN broadcast crew asked what goes through Broome’s mind when he’s isolated on a defender in the post and no double team comes.
“Barbecued chicken,” Broome responded with a laugh.
A national championship matters more to Broome than any individual reward, he has repeatedly said, but don’t let him pretend that being crowned national player of the year wouldn’t mean something to him. As proof, Mattox cites a phone conversation he and Broome had last year when voters were touting Kansas center Hunter Dickinson as an All-American candidate over him.
“Man, Mattox, I’m better than Hunter Dickinson,” the Morehead State coach recalls Broome telling him
Mattox suspects Broome feels the same way now whenever he hears someone describe Flagg as the more deserving choice for player of the year.
“He uses every slight to fuel his fire,” Mattox said. “He’s had that chip on his shoulder since high school. It carried him to Morehead State as an undervalued recruit, it carried him to Auburn and it’s going to carry him the rest of his career.”
