Walter Clayton Jr. did it to Auburn again. Except this time, it wasn’t a wakeup call, it was the end to the Tigers’ season.

Florida’s star point guard exploded for a career-high 34 points in the Gators’ 79-73 Final Four win over Auburn, one-upping his own impressive day when Florida beat Auburn at Neville Arena in February.

“Clayton was the difference. He was just flat out the difference,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said after Saturday’s game. “We couldn’t contain him down that end.”

20 of Clayton’s 34 points came in the second half, a stark contrast from the first matchup in which he had just three in the final 20 minutes.

Not only that, he delivered a dagger only Kyle Guy in 2019 could compete with, finishing an and-1 with 1:33 left in the game stretching Flordia’s lead six, a number that ended up being the final margin.

In the first matchup with Auburn, Clayton did a lot of his work from behind the 3-point line. On Saturday, it came at all three levels, but his ability to shoot from almost anywhere continued to make him hard for Auburn to guard.

He finished the game 11-for-18 from the field, 5-for-8 from long range and 7-for-7 from the free throw line, going over, around and through Auburn’s defense in just about every way.

“About the only thing, again, I probably should have done more is trap the ball out of his hands a little bit,” Pearl said. “Believe it or not, that was part of our game plan, but we just didn’t execute it.”

It’s not the first time this season Pearl has cited lack of execution when asked about limiting Clayton. In the first meeting, Pearl said afterward that the plan was to get the ball out of Clayton’s hands, but “after the first couple possessions, you would never know that that was our game plan.”

He said in February that doing so would require multiple effort and Auburn “just didn’t give it” that night. Pearl never directly questioned or criticized Auburn’s effort in Saturday’s game, but pointed to Florida’s effort and energy in the second half as one of the deciding factors.

Denver Jones, Clayton’s primary defender, pointed to how Florida utilized him when explaining what made Clayton so hard to defend.

“Just constantly moving. I feel like that is just what gave [Clayton] some of the looks he had tonight,” Jones said. “Just a lot of hand-offs, a lot of drives. That’s what it was.”

If you ask Clayton how he was able to take over for a second time against Auburn, his answer won’t be too complicated and won’t sound like someone who had the goal of taking over the game.

“I just let the game come to me. I know I got a bunch of other guys around me who are threats also,” Clayton said. “If you try to double me, Tommy hit that three in the first half, loosened up their defense a little bit, they went away from me. Just read and reacting to the defense.”

Whatever it took, Clayton delivered for the Gators and put an end to arguably Auburn’s best ever season.

Pearl said going into the tournament that the postseason would be about “step-up.” Saturday’s game would indicate that he was right, but the player who stepped up was wearing a different shade of orange and blue.

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