It didn’t come easy, but the No. 1 ranked team in the country will hold onto their spot atop the AP Poll for at least another week, as the Auburn Tigers survived a hard-fought SEC test at the hands of the Tennessee Volunteers. Auburn eked out a 53-51 win over the Vols, and it’s fair to say that the presence of fifth-year senior Johni Broome made all the difference.
Only two weeks ago, Broome suffered what Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl called “a significant ankle sprain” during a surprisingly difficult matchup against the still-winless-in-the-SEC South Carolina Gamecocks. Auburn played only twice in Broome’s absence, scoring a dominant 22-point win over Mississippi State, and then narrowly edging out the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens. But against Pearl’s former team, the Tigers needed their veteran leader.
After the win, Bruce Pearl sent a shoutout to Johni Broome, plus all of the trainers and doctors who got Broome ready for this top ten matchup.
“I just want to thank my trainers and my doctors and Johni Broome for living in the training room for two weeks. I didn’t think he was going to come back tonight, in the middle of the week. And even here the day before, I knew he wanted to go, but I didn’t think he was going to be effective” Pearl said after the victory, per ESPN News Services. “And he had a triple-double tonight: 16 points, 13 rebounds — and he missed 12 shots.”
Bruce Pearl’s jokes and 12 missed shots aside, Broome led all players in the game in both scoring and rebounds in 33 minutes of action off the bench after a two week layoff. It was the spark that Auburn needed to win yet another game that went down to the wire.
“I think the team really respected their leader for putting it on the line, and I don’t know if we win if he doesn’t come back,” Pearl claimed. “We’ve won four games now in the last possession — four of the last six. Last year, we had 20 wins by double digits. And so, whether this team is better or not or whatever we are, this league is better. And so, it’s going be a battle every night. But we are happy with this one, because that’s a great team.”
Auburn now has two consecutive games on the road, going down Baton Rouge on January 29th to face LSU, and then making the trip to Oxford to take on the Ole Miss Rebels, who have lost three games in a row.
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