Observations: Baylor 84, Auburn 72

Saturday offered the full range of the 2020-21 Auburn basketball experience. It was a 'missed opportunity' in Waco, but the Tigers can build from it.

PG Sharife Cooper (Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune Herald)

Saturday offered the full range of the 2020-21 Auburn basketball experience.

Auburn competed well early against a much more experienced team, even leading on a few occasions. Then some tough sequences late in the first half gave way to a really rough start to the second half. Toward the end, the Tigers showed their trademark fight under Bruce Pearl, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Instead of this sequence coming against an unranked SEC opponent, it came against arguably the best team in college basketball — No. 2-ranked Baylor — away from home. The miscues turn into bigger deficits against such an elite team, and they resulted in an 84-72 loss in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge.

Here are five Observations from Auburn’s loss in Waco, along with the Rotation Chart, some Nerd Stats and a hopeful Quote of the Day from one of the Tigers’ leaders.

Another rough ‘third quarter’ sunk Auburn

Auburn went into halftime down by just five points to Baylor. Sur…