Observations: Auburn 66, Kentucky 59

It wasn't the constant, light-em-up offense of the previous two games. But it was still a win — and one over Kentucky — that means so much moving forward.

SF Allen Flanigan (Shanna Lockwood/Auburn Athletics)

There was a feeling Saturday that a Sharife Cooper-led Auburn team wasn’t about to regress to the mean — it was going to free fall and hit terminal velocity towards it.

Auburn’s offense, which was scoring at will despite all of its flaws since Cooper’s clearance by the NCAA, scored just 21 points in the first half against Kentucky and shot 24.2 percent from the field. Kentucky’s struggling attack was finding it easier to score inside Auburn’s own arena.

But Bruce Pearl’s Tigers stayed the course. They knew they were getting good looks. They knew they were physically capable of taking it right to the Wildcats. They just needed to see a few shots go through first.

When that finally happened after halftime, Auburn was able to string together enough stops to take a lead. And while Kentucky threatened late, it was the better-executing team in crunch time and came away with a rather important 66-59 win.

Here are four key Observations from Aubu…