Auburn basketball handled Georgia State despite an early exit from Wooden Award favorite Johni Broome.
The Auburn Tigers returned to Neville Arena on Tuesday to face the Georgia State Panthers. While the final score exceeded expectations, Broome’s early exit did not.
Two minutes into the game, while attempting to grab a rebound, Broome injured his right shoulder. He exited the game and went straight to the locker room.
“His right shoulder came out and came right back. He did it a year ago,” said head coach Bruce Pearl. “We’ll take a look at it tomorrow and tell you more. We hope he’s going to be OK.”
In the absence of Broome, the Tigers still scored 100 points in the 100-59 victory over the Panthers for the team’s tenth win of the season.
Takeaway #1: Chaney Johnson’s career day in Broome’s absence
After Broome went down, it was clear that Auburn needed someone to step up. That someone was Chaney Johnson.
“Chaney Johnson was dominant,” Pearl said. “I’m really proud of him. Nobody works harder than Chaney. (Assistant coach) Ira Bowman is in the gym with him all the time. He’s got a really nice inside-out game.”
Johnson scored his highest point total ever with the Tigers, and despite coming off the bench, he notched 26 points and eight rebounds in 29 minutes of action.
“We always have the ‘next man up’ mentality,” Johnson said in reference to Broome’s injury.
With the long-term health of Broome up in the air and a showdown with Purdue looming, Johnson will play a key role in Auburn’s rotation.
Takeaway #2: Denver Jones’s elite two-way ability on display
While the spotlight was on Johnson’s high-flying dunks in Broome’s absence, the Tigers can attribute the blowout victory large in part to the two-ability of Denver Jones.
“Just staying the course,” said Jones, who’s shooting 44 percent from 3-point range this season. “Coming to the gym, staying consistent with my work ethic, and it’s finally paying off.”
Jones scored 17 points while shooting 5-for-7 on 3-point attempts and has been a crucial part of the offense and the defense and will need to continue to step up with conference play not far away.
Takeaway #3: Team defense
The loss of the Tigers’ defensive anchor early in the contest initially caused some complications, but the team powered the offense through the defense.
Auburn forced 20 Panthers turnovers, which resulted in 30 points off of turnovers, more points than Georgia State scored in the second half.
The Tigers also forced the Panthers into bad shots, limiting their scoring ability and allowing 33.8% from the field and 18.1% on 3-point attempts.
The 20 turnovers spread out across the team’s 11 steals and nine blocks, with nine different Players recording a block or a steal and three recording both.
The steady improvement of the defense after the Duke game has been on display, and when the offense is missing a key component like Broome many teams can rely on good defense to power the offense.
Next up for Auburn (10-1) vs. Purdue (8-3) – Dec. 21 at 4:30 p.m. EST
Next up for Georgia State (4-7): at. Troy (7-1) – Dec. 21 at 3 p.m. EST