Missouri basketball at Auburn: Scouting report, prediction for Mizzou’s SEC opener at Auburn

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First ports of call don’t come much tougher.

Missouri basketball faces Auburn on Saturday afternoon in Auburn, Alabama, to open its Southeastern Conference slate. That means Mizzou, playing its first SEC game since losing all 19 matchups it played against league opponents in the 2023-24 season, is traveling to face one of the top teams in the nation for its first shot at redemption.

Mizzou is 11-2 this season, which is already three more wins than it managed in its historically poor last campaign. So far this season, Missouri has high-major wins over Kansas and California, and its losses both were to teams currently ranked among the top 30 in the net: Illinois and Memphis.

Auburn, like the SEC as a whole, may be a different animal altogether.

Here’s what you need to know about Auburn before Mizzou heads down to the Plains to open up its SEC campaign:

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How will Missouri basketball handle All-American center Johni Broome?

In its first jaunt into SEC action, Missouri gets a player MU head coach Dennis Gates called “a potential player of the year.”

The 6-foot-10, 240-pound Johni Broome, cleared from a brief injury scare in mid-December, is averaging 18.2 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.6 blocks per game through nonconference play. That certainly fits the bill of the preseason All-American, and a potential candidate for Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year honors.

Mizzou has faced an All-American center in Kansas’ Hunter Dickinson, and fared extremely well there as it matched him up with Josh Gray. But, Broome shapes up as perhaps an even bigger challenge for the 7-0 Mizzou big man out of Brooklyn.

Gates has previously called Gray an All-SEC defensive team-caliber player, and he’s going to need to show some of that Saturday.

“(Broome is) playing unselfish basketball. He could easily average 25-30 points per game, if he wanted to,” Gates said. “And I just…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/missouri-basketball-auburn-scouting-report-201712763.html

Author : Columbia Daily Tribune

Publish date : 2025-01-03 20:17:00

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