In a return home to Neville Arena on Tuesday, Auburn extended its winning streak to four games after a dominant 84-54 win over Alabama A&M.

The result was never in question as Auburn began the game on a 12-0 run and led 49-15 at halftime. The second half was one with more lapses from an Auburn team that knew it was up by a huge margin, but it was never in danger of giving up its lead.

Auburn is now 4-1 this season and will have a brief break for Thanksgiving before hosting Virginia Tech back at Neville Arena next Wednesday in the SEC/ACC Challenge.

As Auburn heads into its break, here’s three takeaways from the win.

Bruce Pearl experiments with a new starting lineup

It wasn’t clear before Auburn’s game against Alabama A&M exactly why Pearl trotted out a different starting five.

It did, though, give him a chance to experiment. Pearl started both his point guard — Aden Holloway and Tre Donaldson — as well as Dylan Cardwell in Johni Broome’s typical spot at center.

Auburn has been one of the top 15 teams in the nation in assists per game this season, and starting both of Auburn’s point guards with both efficient scoring and distributing ability would seem to lend itself to more assists.

This, in fact, was the first time that Holloway and Donaldson had played together after competing for the point guard spot all fall.

And the assists certainly followed.

Yet, somehow, Holloway and Donaldson actually had none of them in the game’s opening stretch. Auburn assisted on all five of baskets scored with that starting lineup in to begin the game. Auburn actually had assists on each of its first seven baskets and 10 of its first 11. None of the from Holloway or Donaldson.

Holloway had a +31 rating in the first half.

More on that in the next takeaway.

That group of five was seen once again the start of the second half. Their first bucket? A Donaldson kick out pass to assist a Holloway made 3-pointer. Jones, Broome and Chad Baker-Mazara were subbed on with 17:50 to go in the second half.

That was the last that specific combination of five was seen in the game.

Auburn’s ability to share the basketball makes this offense dangerous

Auburn entered this game already averaging more than 20 assists per game. That’s among the top 15 teams in the nation and the best in the SEC.

It continued again.

As mentioned above, Auburn assisted on 10 of its first 11 baskets. It slowed down, so to speak, to only assist on 13 of 18 first half field goals.

The assists also did not come from just one source. In the first half Auburn had eight players make a basket and seven players with an assist. It was a combination of guards and forwards, too.

Nine Auburn players scored in the win. Eight players had an assist. Six had more than one.

Auburn’s offense continues to be extremely dangerous this season, and its ability to efficiently move the basketball is a key reason why. Auburn is averaging scoring more than 80 points per game this season and hit that mark yet again.

It is passing the ball and doing so without turnovers, too. Auburn finished the game with 19 assists compared to 13 turnovers.

The ratio differed greatly between the two halves, with Auburn playing with a much more lethargic second half up by so many points. The first half assist to turnover ratio was 13 to 1 compared to 6 to 12 in the second half.

Auburn played against a team ranked outside the KenPom top 300 and dominated as it should. Well, in the first half.

Alabama A&M is ranked 349th in KenPom out of 362 teams. Auburn is No. 15. KenPom projected Auburn to win by more than 30 points. Analytically and on paper, Auburn was the much better team.

It went out and played like it, too.

This was easily Auburn’s most dominant effort of the season. The 15 points Auburn allowed in the first half were the second fewest ever of any opponent in Neville Arena.

Between the first and second half, there was a streak of nearly eight minutes where Auburn did not allow a point. From the 5:37 to play mark in the first half until the 15:22 to play mark in the second half, Auburn forced Alabama A&M to shoot 1-15 from the field. That’s 6%.

But Auburn’s second half as a whole resembled its win over St. Bonaventure last week in the Legend’s Classic. In that game, much like the win at home Tuesday, Auburn went into the half up by a large margin and in full control of the game.

So the second half was a more casual, foot-off-the-gas type effort. Auburn lost the second half 39-35.

Auburn went more than six minutes without making a shot in the second half and at one point, Alabama A&M went on an 18-3 run. Auburn was up my such a comfortable margin that it didn’t matter much, but it was not a full 40-minute effort from Pearl’s team.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]