A historic Auburn basketball season ended Saturday night.

The Tigers lost to Florida 79-73 in Saturday’s national semifinal game, finishing the season 32-6, one game short of the national championship.

It caps off a season that saw Auburn win more games than any other team in program history and making their second-ever Final Four. But like 2019, the Tigers don’t reach Monday night’s title game.

Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s game:

Florida’s stars shined brighter

In a game of Saturday’s magnitude, it seemed like the most talented players were going to rise to the top.

That was indeed the case in the beginning, as two All-Americans seemed to stand out above the rest. Broome and Clayton scored 12 and 14 points respectively in the first 20 minutes, each taking over at different points in the first half.

Clayton nearly matched what he did in the first half of Florida’s earlier win over Auburn. It was kickstarted by two early 3-pointers, but he found success scoring at all three levels.

Similar to Clayton, Broome’s day started early too. He scored the game’s first points on a turnaround jumper and seemed to take over again near the end of the first half. However, he couldn’t sustain it like Clayton did, who finished with a game-high 34 points.

Broome scored just three points in the second half, and the disappointing finish was capped off by two late misses at the free throw line that might have doomed Auburn.

Immediately after that, Clayton responded with a three-point play that was a dagger.

Pearl talked before the NCAA tournament about “step-up” being what would make the difference in March. On Saturday night, that came from Clayton.

Florida won in the backcourt

Outside of Clayton, Florida’s frontcourt was the story of the Gators’ win over Auburn during the regular season. Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon combined for 33 points and 19 rebounds, giving Florida an edge in the paint.

In Saturday’s game, Florida’s guards took over, as Clayton led the way once again. The first team All-American led all scorers, but backcourt partners Alijah Martin and Will Richard combined for an additional 24 points.

After not playing in the teams’ first meeting, Martin stood out the most outside of Clayton, finishing with 17 points and the potential dunk of the tournament in the second half over Tahaad Pettiford and Chad Baker-Mazara.

Auburn couldn’t finish

Head coach Bruce Pearl publicly criticized Auburn’s effort after the Tigers’ regular season loss to Florida on Feb. 8.

His words were mainly in response to Auburn’s inability to contain star Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. He scored 19 points and added nine assists in that game, with 16 of his points coming in the first half.

“It just required multiple effort,” Pearl said when asked what went wrong in Auburn’s gameplan against Clayton. “And we just didn’t give it.”

Defending Clayton wasn’t the only area in which Auburn’s effort could have been better. Florida grabbed a number of key offensive rebounds in the second half and its frontcourt won the matchup against Auburn’s bigs.

When the two teams met on Saturday, Auburn looked different early on. Clayton still had a good game, but the Tigers honed in on their previous mistakes in the frontcourt.

That allowed Auburn to take an eight-point lead into halftime, but things started to shift in the second half. Rather than Auburn falling apart in the second half, Florida simply seemed to step up.

The Gators were on fire defensively, forcing a slew of turnovers and slowing down Auburn’s efficient offense, which averaged 1.438 points per possession in the first half.

The second half saw Florida outscore Auburn, outrebound and outwork the Tigers in all the critical phases of the game. That’s what has made Florida great all season and it made the Gators better than Auburn on Saturday.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m