Observations: Auburn 85, Florida 73

For the second straight game, Bruce Pearl's Tigers won on the inside and closed well to earn yet another SEC win by double-digit points.

SG K.D. Johnson (Jacob Taylor/Auburn Athletics)

On Saturday night, Auburn basketball beat an SEC opponent by a dozen-plus points for the third time in as many games.

That hadn’t been done in 52 years.

The last Tigers team that pulled it off was the 1969-70 squad, which was led by John Mengelt. The legendary Mengelt would famously score 60 points in a win over Alabama a month after the Tigers’ hot conference start, but he had 47 — No. 3 in the single-game record book at Auburn — during it.

Auburn’s 2021-22 squad most likely doesn’t have a 60-point scorer on it. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to get to 40, which Mengelt did eight times. (Note: All the other players in Tigers history combined for just five 40-point games. Mengelt also has the top four scoring performances in Auburn’s record book.)

And that has nothing to do with the talent level of the Tigers. It has more to do with the balance.

Auburn’s third straight SEC win, an 85-73 home victory over Florida, featured four double-digit scorers. Four other Tigers scored at least four points. Eleven saw action in only the second time all season in which all scholarship players were available.

Bruce Pearl’s Tigers shared the wealth and had a team effective field goal percentage of 60.7%, which was a new season-high. And while their defense had their hands full in the second half with Mike White’s Gators, they still turned a tense 1-point lead to a double-digit win as Florida hit just four of its final 17 shots.

Here are five Observations, the Rotation Chart, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night from Auburn’s 12-point win over Florida.