They used to be college basketball standouts in Kentucky. They’ll return as Auburn Tigers.
READ MORE
Game day: Kentucky 82, Florida 74
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Florida in Gainesville, Fla.
Expand All
Followers of college basketball around the commonwealth will find a couple of familiar names in the lineup opposite the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday afternoon.
Johni Broome and Wendell Green Jr. were conference rivals and young standouts in the state not too long ago. Now, they’re the two most important players on the Auburn Tigers’ roster.
The rise of the transfer portal — and the relatively new NCAA guidelines allowing players to switch schools without the penalty of sitting out a season — has largely been a boon for major conferences and a setback for their mid-major counterparts.
The construction of Auburn’s 2022-23 roster is an illustration of how that’s hit close to home.
Green spent his freshman season at Eastern Kentucky, averaging 15.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game and quickly emerging as a starter for the Colonels in his first year of college basketball. After that breakout campaign, he bolted for Auburn and became arguably the Tigers’ best backcourt player in his first run with them last season.
A year later — after two seasons starring at Morehead State — Broome followed suit, leaving the Ohio Valley Conference for an opportunity on a bigger basketball stage.
Both players will be back in the Bluegrass this weekend. And both are likely to provide some headaches for the home team.
Broome began the week as Auburn’s leading scorer and rebounder — as well as the third-best shot-blocker in the Southeastern Conference — and the 6-foot-10 forward from Florida has been on a hot streak as of late. He’s averaging 14.0 points and 8.9 rebounds per game this season, but his scoring production has picked up in recent weeks.
Going into Wednesday night’s matchup with Mississippi, he had scored at least 15 points in seven of Auburn’s last nine games. That run started with a 27-point, 11-rebound performance in a win over South Carolina. He tallied 19 points and 18 rebounds in a win over Georgia. He dropped 20 in both games last week.
“We need Johni to be dominant on the inside,” Coach Bruce Pearl said after the Tigers beat Missouri behind 20 points and 10 rebounds from Broome last Tuesday night.
This kind of production is nothing new.
Broome was a lightly recruited player out of high school but quickly blossomed into a star under Coach Preston Spradlin at Morehead State, earning OVC freshman of the year honors in his first season and becoming the league’s defensive player of the year last season. Broome led the Eagles to the NCAA Tournament as a freshman and nearly got them back in the Big Dance as a sophomore, losing a close one to nationally ranked Murray State in the OVC title game.
His departure was an obvious blow to Morehead State, an example of the reality that mid-major teams face in this transfer portal era. Broome wanted a chance to prove his game on a grander stage, and those he left behind in Kentucky understood, even if it was tough to part ways.
“I will be his biggest cheerleader,” Spradlin told the Herald-Leader last spring, after Broome made his decision to transfer. “We love our guys. We wish them the best. And we are going to continue to support them whether we get the opportunity to coach them or not moving forward.”
Eastern Kentucky Coach A.W. Hamilton was left in a similar spot when Green — and star teammate Tre King, who ended up at Georgetown, then Iowa State — decided to leave Richmond after the 2020-21 season. Hamilton took it in stride, as well.
“I am so proud of Wendell Green and Tre King. I love those guys,” Hamilton said at the time. “... We will miss them, but we have to move forward.”
In a different world, Broome and Green would be in their junior seasons at Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky, respectively. Instead, they’ll be in Rupp Arena wearing Auburn uniforms this weekend.
The teams they left behind are doing all right. Morehead State clinched the OVC title Wednesday night despite losing its star player. EKU, which moved to the ASUN Conference in 2021, is right in the thick of that league’s race.
And Broome and Green are thriving in their new homes.
Broome is second only to Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe in SEC rebounding. (If Tshiebwe hadn’t returned to the Wildcats this season, there’s a chance Broome could have taken his spot in the middle of UK’s lineup). Meanwhile, Green is third in the league in assists, playing a frenetic style that makes the 5-11 guard a must-see player (and a handful to stop when his shots are falling).
“Wendell’s a fierce competitor,” Pearl said this month. “All he cares about is winning.”
Broome and Green faced off three times during their only season together in the OVC. Their teams split the first two games before Morehead knocked off EKU in the OVC semifinals.
Green had 29 points in a losing effort in that one, and his future teammate still remembered the performance a year and a half later.
“We were up 10 points with five minutes left, and he came back by himself basically,” Broome recalled earlier this season. “He tied it up with a minute left, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this dude is crazy.’ He’s pulling up from deep, he gets to the rim, he does it all.”
Green showed last season that his style could translate from the OVC to the SEC, and Broome is doing the same this time around.
The Tigers lost No. 3 NBA Draft pick Jabari Smith and national defensive player of the year Walker Kessler at the end of last season. To help fill the hole in their frontcourt, they landed Broome, who appears to be hitting his stride as a major-conference player.
“When my recruitment started happening and Bruce gave me a call, I could just hear in his voice how important I was to the Auburn culture,” he said in the fall. “He talked to me, and we built a relationship. … When I came on my visit, just seeing how genuine they were and what good guys they were, it made my decision.”
Next game
Auburn at Kentucky
When: 4 p.m. Saturday
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Auburn 18-9 (8-6 SEC), Kentucky 18-9 (9-5) entering Wednesday night’s games
Series: Kentucky leads 96-23
Last meeting: Auburn won 80-71 on Jan. 22, 2022, at Auburn, Ala.
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 7:00 AM.
