Observations: UCF 63, Auburn 55

If the St. Joe's and Gonzaga games showcased the good and the bad of a young Auburn basketball team, the UCF game was the ugly.

PF JT Thor (Cody Voga/Auburn Athletics)

There really was no way to open these Observations with anything other than Bruce Pearl’s opening comments.

“Well, that was ugly,” Pearl said. “Set the game of basketball back a few years.”

Defensively, Pearl continued, his team played much better Monday night than it did in a lopsided loss to Gonzaga last Friday. Offensively, though?

“It was a disaster.”

Auburn’s 63-55 loss at UCF was unkind on the eyes, as the young squad put up one of the worst shooting performances — from all levels of the court — of the Pearl era. Here are four key observations, the rotation chart and nerd stats from the Tigers’ Monday night misfortunes.

Well, it can’t get much worse offensively

Let’s just jump right into the numbers. Auburn shot 7-34 (20.6 percent) from 3-point range, 5-17 (29.4 percent) on layups and 8-22 (36.4 percent) from the free-throw line. Auburn was a perfect 6-6 on dunks, meaning it was only consistent scoring when the ball didn’t leave its hands until…