Auburn hit the road again for a Wednesday night game in Huntsville against UNC Asheville. The Tigers haven’t played in Huntsville in two decades.

And head coach Bruce Pearl’s team gave the Auburn fans in northern Alabama an 87-62 win over UNC Asheville.

But it wasn’t comfortable the whole time. Here are three takeaways from Auburn’s win.

Auburn’s balance remains a strong suit

Entering Wednesday, Auburn has seven players averaging more than seven points per game. Five players average more than two assists per game. Five players average more than two rebounds per game.

Auburn has known it has a balanced roster. That’s why it plays a 10-man rotation. And the stats have proven why.

Auburn has shown games like in Atlanta where it can take two big days like it had from Aden Holloway and Jaylin Williams to win.

And it has shown on days like it had against UNC Asheville where it can blowout an opponent by getting a little bit from everyone, too.

All 11 scholarship Tigers who played scored Wednesday night. All of them had four or more points. Eight of them had six or more.

Eight Tigers had a rebound. Eight had an assist.

It’s as balanced as a team can get.

Auburn has shown it can win in a variety of ways this season. It can get big days like it had from Johni Broome when he scored 30 against Virginia Tech. Or it can get a little from everyone like it had against UNC Asheville.

Auburn is versatile. That’s a good thing.

Auburn pulled away by shutting down the Big South Player of the Year

Auburn’s defense got out to a slow start as it allowed a poor shooting Indiana team to make shots early and get out to a 22-10 lead in Atlanta over the weekend. Auburn did the same thing Wednesday night, and fell behind 19-17 in the first half to UNC Asheville.

In large part, that was because Auburn had the same problem many have had against UNC Asheville: it couldn’t stop reigning Big South Player of the Year Drew Pember.

Pember scored 10 points in the game’s first nine minutes.

And then Auburn kept him scoreless for the rest of the first half. In fact, he didn’t score again until he made a free throw with 13:22 remaining in the second half.

Auburn’s defense tightened and completely eliminated his impact. That’s not easy to do. Pember only made only three shots for the entire rest of the game.

In that time, Auburn completely throttled the Asheville offense.

During those just over 17 minutes, Auburn outscored UNC Asheville 39-21. It was a pivotal stretch in Auburn building up its big cushion. The slow start was overcome in this game in large part by Auburn just being the better team.

It’s also a second consecutive game where Auburn eliminated the opponent’s best player, as Auburn made Indiana’s Kel’el Ware, another big man, a non-factor.

Auburn’s assist rate is incredible

Going back to the start of the Indiana game, Auburn has 44 assists to 10 turnovers.

That’s 25 to 3 against Indiana and 19-7 against UNC Asheville.

Auburn has been one of the best teams in the country for assists this season, but it has now added in trimming its turnovers.

Auburn was already in the top 10 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio. Auburn was also 11th nationally in assists per game. Those will both climb further Thursday morning.

It, like Pearl said after the Indiana win, was another largely beautiful day of basketball. Auburn’s ability to share the basketball effectively — should it be maintained — is another reason this team is dangerous.

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