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Nate Oats stresses importance of Cliff Omoruyi's 1-on-1 post defense against Johni Broome

63571867_t466o7i5ncby:Blake Byler•about 18 hours•

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CliffOmoruyiTexas
Feb 11, 2025; Austin, Texas, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide guard Clifford Omoruyi (11) reaches for a pass during the second half against the Texas Longhorns at Moody Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama is going to have its hands full on the interior on Saturday afternoon.

As if the No. 1-ranked team coming into your building wasn’t difficult enough, Auburn brings with it center Johni Broome, one of the best players in the sport and one of two frontrunners for national player of the year. Broome has dominated nearly every team he’s played this year, averaged a double-double this season with 18.1 points and 10.7 rebounds on average.

Last season, Broome averaged 24.5 points in two meetings with Alabama, dominating on the inside in both matchups. The Crimson Tide’s interior defense was notably subpar that season, leading to the addition of Cliff Omoruyi in the offseason to try to bolster its rim protection.

“We’d like to be able to guard the post 1-on-1,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during his Friday press conference. “We’ve got a guy that we brought in thinking he could. We struggled a little bit earlier in the year with some of it, we’ve hopefully done a better job teaching him some of that. Like you said, Broome is a national player of the year candidate, one of the best bigs in college basketball for the last few years running. He’s a load.”

Dominant bigs gave Alabama some trouble early in the season, notably in a loss to Purdue where Trey Kaufman-Renn gave the Tide a season-high 26 points. In conference play, Omoruyi has shown some improvement as he’s adjusted to Alabama’s pace.

The danger against Auburn is what the Tigers can do if Broome is unable to be guarded 1-on-1. Sending a double team is asking to give up open threes, with Tahaad Pettiford, Miles Kelly and Denver Jones are all shooting over 40 percent from deep.

“If we have to double him, he can pass well, they have shooting all over the floor,” Oats said. “They’ve got four guys that are basically 40 percent or above, which is ridiculous in college. It’s not like they’re just catch-and-shoot guys, like these guys can make them off the dribble.

“So ideally you don’t have to do a lot of doubling, ideally Cliff was brought in to enable us to not have to double often. We’ve got option B, C, D in the back pocket if we need to go to it.”

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