Birmingham | Another Auburn game, another dominant victory over a quality opponent.

The Tigers kept their string of blowout wins going as they beat Purdue 87-69 in a game where Auburn led by as much as 33 points and led by 29 before calling off the dogs.

Johni Broome, who was questionable to play after injuring his shoulder against Georgia State, came back and posted 23 points and 11 rebounds to pace the Tigers.

Auburn led by 15 at the break and used an extended 29-13 run to put the Boilermakers away midway through the second half.

"We beat a good basketball team, but we beat a great basketball program," Bruce Pearl said postgame. "Nobody does it better than Purdue. Period. I've got great respect for Matt and his staff, and I think the feeling's mutual."

Here are some takeaways from Auburn's throttling of Purdue:

JOHNI IS BACK, AND STILL

After missing practically the entire Georgia State game due to a hurt shoulder, Broome was a game-time decision but decided to play through the pain.

And after a rough opening stretch defensively, Broome returned to being the best player in the country.

Broome played 18 minutes in the first half and finished with 23 points and 11 boards to go along with a block and a steal.

"His first rotation he got scored on a couple times," Pearl said. "And the great thing about it is we actually kind of got on him, and he right away responded 'I got you.' Then he played, with the exception of his first rotation, he played great defense the rest of the night."

Broome was once again nerfed by his own team being too dominant as he only played 29 minutes.

There's no question about it: Broome is the best player in America, and he showed it again in his return to action.

"He's a player of the year candidate," Pearl said about Broome. "If we keep playing well, and he's playing well, it'd be hard-pressed to not feel like he's one of the top four of five guys we could choose from."

AGAIN, IT'S NOT JUST JOHNI

Broome is great, but he has help.

Denver Jones posted 15 points on 3-of-6 shooting from deep, and after an early season slump, is up to 44 percent from deep.

Chad Baker-Mazara did a little of everything posting eight points, five rebounds, six assists, two blocks and four steals.

"Chad Baker-Mazara is instinctively one of the best players in our league," Pearl said. "He just flat out is, and he impacts the game in so many ways."

Chaney Johnson, in a similar vein, posted six points, four rebounds and five assists.

Broome is the favorite for Naismith Player of the Year, and a big reason why is his teammates, who he had full confidence in had he not been able to play.

"I didn't feel any pressure at all," Broome said. "It was my decision, and I just really went off my body, how my body felt. I didn't need to play this game because I knew my teammates -- they told me all week they had my back. They wanted me to play with them, but they didn't want me to rush back."

OPPOSING GUARDS IN HELL

Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer are two of the best guards in the country and both played a major role in getting Purdue to the national championship last season.

Against Auburn, both were negative players.

The two guards both shot 3-of-12 from the field and finished with a combined 19 points.

And once again, it was Jones causing an off night for an opposing guard.

"Denver Jones is one of the best defensive guards in college basketball," Pearl said. "I'm sure when I listen to the broadcast tonight, there's plenty of opportunity for just, quietly, putting all that pressure on Braden Smith. I don't know how many times he got scored on; didn't get scored on very often."

The rest of the Boilermaker offense wasn't much better as they shot 37 percent from the field as a team and 29 percent from deep before garbage time.

Auburn's defense was challenged by Pearl after it allowed 84 points to Duke, and so far, it has responded in a major way.

"We're a better defensive team than what we showed at Duke," Broome said. "After that, it was kind of a wake-up call as well, something that we needed. And as you can see, our defense has turned it up another notch."

CONQUERED A NON-CONFERENCE GAUNTLET

Heading into the season, the expectation was that Auburn would likely drop at least two to four games and be challenged mightily in all of them.

Instead, they only lost one game, and a lot of them were blood baths.

Here is the list of schools Auburn played and beat along with their KenPom rank: No. 4 Houston, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 27 Purdue, No. 29 North Carolina, No. 37 Ohio State and No. 40 Memphis.

Not only did Auburn win all of those games, only two of them were within 10 points.

So not only did Auburn conquer a brutal non-conference schedule, for the most part, it completely dominated it.

Prior to this season, Auburn had just four non-conference wins against AP top-25 teams in its history.

It picked up four in six weeks.

Auburn has five quad-1 wins, and the next closest team has three.

ANALYTICS LOVE THIS TEAM

Auburn might be the No. 1 team in the AP Poll come Christmas, it also might not be.

That also doesn't really matter.

What does matter is the computer rankings, and Auburn tops the rankings on the following sites: KenPom, EvanMiya, Torvik, NET and HaslaMetrics.

So basically, every computer site.

So basically, no matter what writers decide on Monday, don't get it twisted: Auburn is far and away the best team in the country right now.