Auburn cruised to an 89-68 win over Syracuse on Friday.

It was a successful trip for the Tigers who went 2-1 down in the Bahamas and now head back home for a game against UCF on Wednesday.

Takeaways from Friday's game and the Battle 4 Atlantis as a whole:

The Battle 4 Atlantis was an absolute win for Auburn

Bruce Pearl said Auburn wanted a championship or two wins at the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. That was accomplished, going 2-1.

But more than that, I think this tournament was a huge success for Auburn. Even in Auburn's 115-109 loss to UConn, that double-overtime game provided plenty of lessons and experience for this team.

That was a quality loss and something that will be beneficial come SEC play. They'll have that experience in long games where they're getting tested.

Then Auburn was able to take down two future NCAA Tournament teams in Loyola Chicago by nine points and Syracuse by 21 points.

Auburn should be thrilled with the results of its time down in the Bahamas.

K.D. Johnson's move to the starting lineup was great and it needs to stick

Not that there's any indication it would happen, but the move to K.D. Johnson in the starting lineup absolutely has to stick moving forward. He is far too talented to be coming off the bench.

Johnson averaged 16.3 points and 4.7 steals per game during the Battle 4 Atlantis. That included a career-high 27-point performance against UConn.

And through the first six games of the season, Johnson has accumulated 20 steals. Allen Flanigan and Devan Cambridge tied for a team-high 24 steals during all of last year.

Johnson cannot and likely will not come out of the starting lineup again this season.

Auburn's zone offense can be a real weapon this year

With Syracuse's famous zone defense, Auburn had to switch things up and utilize some new offensive schemes and more of a zone offense.

"We’ve got good zone offense, the challenge was, we put most of it in this morning," Pearl said. "We had only played three games prior where we didn’t run a lot of zone offense, but to these kids credit, our concepts and a couple new wrinkles — look, we ran a zone set today that we haven’t practiced all year."

Jabari Smith especially, and Jaylin Williams to a lesser extent, were able to sit right around the free throw line and pick apart that zone defense from Syracuse.

Auburn's new offensive looks worked out really well and could prove to be a big weapon for this team moving forward.

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