Johni Broome was a college force at Auburn. He’ll start his NBA journey as a 2nd-round draft pick

Johni Broome was a college basketball headliner at Auburn, the Associated Press first-team All-American an undeniable force powering the Tigers to the Final Four.

His NBA journey is coming with less fanfare.

The fifth-year big man went to the Philadelphia 76ers with the No. 35 pick in Thursday’s second round of the draft. If offered an example of how elite college production doesn’t always equate to high-end NBA potential or draft status, particularly when it comes to an older player deemed more of a finished product compared to the youngster with rising upside.

Still, the player ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas described simply as a winner is tough, tested and eager to start his pro pursuit all the same.

“I think what he said was right,” Broome said of Bilas during Thursday’s ESPN broadcast. ”I’m a winner. I get things done, offensively and defensively, so the Sixers got a good one.”

The 6-foot-9, 249-pound Broome — who started his career as an unheralded recruit for two years at Morehead State — averaged 18.6 points, 10.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocks last year for Auburn, which started the year at No. 11 in the AP Top 25 poll but immediately climbed to a top-5 status it wouldn’t yield for the rest of the year behind Broome’s brilliance. That included eight straight weeks ranked at No. 1 from mid-January to early March.

Broome stuffed box scores so thoroughly that he was the player of the year in a rugged Southeastern Conference, which was hands down the nation’s top conference and produced a record 14 bids to the NCAA Tournament. And he finished as runner-up for AP national player of the year to Duke freshman and eventual No. 1 overall draft pick Cooper Flagg in what was a true two-man spotlight this season, with Broome collecting a third of the vote as the only other player named on a ballot.

He pushed the Tigers program to only its second trip to college basketball’s biggest stage, grinding through an elbow injury suffered during the Elite Eight win against Michigan State and then being hampered by it during the loss to eventual champion Florida in the national semifinals a week later.

That all seemingly had him positioned to be a first-round prospect who led Auburn to 59 wins in the past two years alone.

NBA evaluations, however, are different.

Broome lacks elite athleticism. His testing and measurements at the combine didn’t help his first-round chances; he had a 28-inch max vertical leap, tied for second worst at the combine, while only six players posted a lower standing vertical leap (24.0). He also finished tied for fourth-worst in the shuttle run (3.23 seconds) designed to test agility.

Numbers aren’t everything, of course. Maryland big man Derik Queen tied Broome for the second-worst max vertical and still went on to go late in the lottery (No. 13). But Queen is the still-developing prospect growing into his upside at 20 years old and with just 36 games of college experience, compared to Broome being the as-is prospect who turns 23 on July 19 after playing 168 college games.

When it comes to his game, he plays more below the rim and lacks the defense-stretching range essential in today’s game built around floor-spacing.

His jumper is rated as “below average” in Synergy’s analytics rankings, with him making 27.1% to rank in the 25th percentile — with most of those attempts coming in catch-and-shoot situations. That underlying data aligns with his outside-shooting statistics, where Broome made just 31.4% of his 3-point attempts (53 of 169) over the last two seasons and had at least two made 3s in just 15 of 71 games.

He was at his best in post-ups, as a cutter, working as the roll man in pick-and-rolls and attacking the offensive glass, ranking “good” to “very good” in all of those categories in Synergy. He also ranked as “very good” in finishing layups and dunks at the rim, converting 65.9% of those attempts to rank in the 81st percentile.

Metrics aside, there’s a place in the NBA for guys who can rebound and defend with toughness. He’s already proven he can, along with putting in the work going back to being a three-star signee with Morehead State.

“He may not be an above-the-rim big guy, but he carves out space and he gets things done,” Bilas said during the broadcast. “A really productive player that has been overlooked before and has come through.”

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AP Sports Writer Steve Reed contributed to this report.

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