As No. 1 Auburn welcomes No. 6 Tennessee to Neville Arena on Saturday in a massive SEC matchup, all eyes will be on one thing: if Johni Broome plays.

Bruce Pearl gave an update on Thursday afternoon ahead of the battle against the Volunteers.

"We'll practice this afternoon, and there's a possibility he'll try and practice," the Auburn coach said. "But we're not sure. I'll obviously know more tomorrow and Saturday, so I don't know whether he's questionable or possible, but I do know he's going to try to move around a little bit today. We'll just have to see how he does."

The Auburn center and early frontrunner for the Wooden Award as national player of the year, Broome has missed the last two games after spraining his ankle in the Tigers' 66-63 victory against South Carolina on January 11. While Pearl's squad has won both games, his presence inside is still missed, especially on offense, where a majority of plays are run through the big man.

How much of an impact does Broome make? He leads Auburn in points per game (17.9), rebounds (10.7), assists (3.2) and blocks (2.7), holding down the fort in the middle alongside Dylan Cardwell. The fifth-year senior being out has impacted how the Tigers run their offense.

"We're going to miss Johni more on the offensive end because he's such a great offensive player, and he's such an unselfish passer, and we can do a lot of game planning around him offensively," Pearl said after the Mississippi State victory. "So I would say that we probably had to go to some other things offensively more so, but our guys, they knew what they needed to do."