Charles Barkley didn’t do it even though he led the Southeastern Conference in rebounding each of his three college seasons and was named the 1984 SEC player of the year by the Associated Press as a junior.

Chuck Person didn’t do it even though he led Auburn to the Sweet 16 as a junior in 1985 and the Elite Eight as a senior in 1986 while compiling the most career points in school history, a record that still stands 40 years later.

Chris Porter didn’t do it even though he led Auburn to its first regular-season conference championship in 39 years and earned the nod from the league’s coaches as the 1999 SEC player of the year.

It’s getting harder and harder to make Auburn basketball history, but one individual award had always escaped the program’s grasp. Until now. After a regular season full of firsts, you can mark one more individual milestone as mission accomplished.

Johni Broome is the national player of the year. So says the Sporting News, one of the four official selectors of All-American teams that constitute consensus status.

Broome isn’t merely the first Auburn hoops star to be named the best player in the country. The Sporting News has bestowed that honor since 1943, and Broome is just the fourth SEC player to earn it. His distinguished predecessors: LSU’s Pete Maravich in 1970, Kentucky’s Anthony Davis in 2012 and Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe in 2022.

That is elite company.

That Broome earned this award in a season in which Auburn won its fifth SEC regular-season title, spent eight straight weeks as the AP’s No. 1 team – the longest run in league history for any school other than Kentucky – and matched the program record of 27 wins before the SEC Tournament is no surprise. He was the man in the middle of it all, the double-double machine, who was at his best against the best.

In the 29 games he played, Broome averaged 18.6 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.28 assists and 2.45 blocks, leading the team in each category. In 19 Quad One games, he leveled up, averaging 20.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.5 blocks, powering Auburn to a 15-4 record against the toughest opponents.

On Senior Day, in his final game in Neville Arena, he scored a career-high 34 points while adding eight rebounds, five blocks, three assists and three steals. He also swished the game-tying 3-point shot with 15 seconds left in overtime, but Alabama All-American Mark Sears hit the final shot at the horn for the win.

Imagine what Broome might have accomplished had he not missed two games with a severe ankle injury and had played the entire season at a lot closer to 100 percent than he has.

That he was named national player of the year in a year that saw Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg live up to an almost unprecedented level of hype is a surprise. No one would compare Auburn’s hoops history to Duke’s, but as good as the Blue Devils have been this year, their resume doesn’t match Auburn’s, and Flagg’s performance doesn’t top Broome’s.

Broome led the SEC in five different categories: total rebounds, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, blocks and double-doubles. He also finished the regular season in the top five in the league in scoring (third). field-goal percentage (fourth) and – in an incredible feat for a post player – assist-to-turnover ratio (fourth).

Nationally, Broome is third among power conference players in rebounds, blocks and double-doubles. Among all Division I players, he is sixth in double-doubles, eighth in rebounds per game and ninth in blocks per game. He is the only Division I player in the top 10 in double-doubles and the top 50 in rebounds who has played fewer than 30 games.

Meanwhile, Flagg ranks in the top 30 nationally in only one statistical category at No. 28 in points per game. His 19.4 scoring average is less than a point better than Broome’s 18.6.

In conference play, Flagg did not lead the ACC in a single statistical category. He finished in the top five in the conference in three: scoring (third), defensive rebounds (fourth) and field-goal percentage (fifth).

Broome led Auburn’s SEC championship team in minutes per game, scoring, rebounding, field-goal attempts and makes, free-throw attempts, assists and blocks. Flagg led Duke’s ACC championship team in all those categories plus free-throw makes, steals and turnovers.

Broome has ruled in a league Dick Vitale labeled “the most dominant conference that I have ever seen top to bottom in my 45 years at ESPN,” against a schedule strength ranked No. 2 in the country by kenpom.com. Flagg has enjoyed a terrific year in the weakest ACC in memory, if not history, against a schedule strength ranked No. 58.

For all of those reasons, choosing between Broome and Flagg as national player of the year shouldn’t be as flip-a-coin close as many analysts have suggested. We’ll see what the AP, National Association of Basketball Coaches and U.S. Basketball Writers have to say. Then there are the Wooden and Naismith Awards.

In all, six different organizations will name a national player of the year. Broome should add the other five trophies as well. He may not, but thanks to the wisdom of voters at the Sporting News, he already has shattered another glass ceiling for Auburn basketball.

That leaves one bit of unfinished business for the program. The national championship. If Broome stays healthy, Auburn will have a real shot to add the biggest team award in the sport to the biggest individual award. Those bookends would stand tall forever.