MINNEAPOLIS -- Auburn's top two scorers on the season, guards Bryce Brown and Jared Harper, are battling illness on Friday just a day before the start of the 2019 Final Four. A third player, backup point guard J'Von McCormick, is also battling a bug.
Harper's voice was noticeably hoarse as he answered questions in the breakout session with media on Friday morning, where he divulged that he has a cold. Harper, according to coach Bruce Pearl, is "under the weather." He got a shot to deal with the symptoms on Friday. Brown got a shot on Thursday to deal with his own illness.
"We've got a couple of guys that are sniffling and hacking and coughing, but we don't play today," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. "Jared would be less than 100 percent if we had to play today. If we played yesterday, Bryce would have been less than 100 percent. He'll be fine tomorrow."
Auburn perhaps benefitted from a bug in the Sweet 16 when North Carolina forward Nassir Little came down with flu-like symptoms before tip. The Tigers pounced on the Tar Heels in turn, taking them down 97-80 in a dominant win. It would be a cruel twist of irony if in the biggest game of the season the bug impacted them in a major way.
Harper and Brown average a combined 31.4 points and 7.7 assists per game this season. Auburn enters its first Final Four in school history already short-handed after big man Chuma Okeke went down with a season-ending knee-injury in the Tigers' victory vs. North Carolina.
