KANSAS CITY, Mo. – As a young assistant coach at Iowa, Bruce Pearl tried to sell Hawkeyes head coach Tom Davis on a young point guard Pearl admired, Anderson Hunt.
Davis accompanied Pearl to see Hunt play one summer morning but the backcourt prospect struggled through a 9 a.m. tip. Unimpressed, Davis declined to offer a scholarship.
Hunt landed at UNLV and was the Most Outstanding Player in the 1990 NCAA Championship game, scoring 29 points to lead the Runnin' Rebels past Duke.
A quarter-century later, Pearl again spotted a precocious point guard in Atlanta, taking his assistants with him to evaluate Jared Harper, then a high school junior. Another summer early morning tip.
"Jared played great," Pearl said on the eve of Friday's 6:29 p.m. CT Sweet 16 showdown between Auburn and North Carolina.
"And I told my guys, 'If we don't get him committed now, he will not be available after the summer. He is special. He's the best little guard I've seen in a long, long time,'" said Pearl, whose time at Boston College overlapped with future NBA guards Michael Adams (5-10) and John Bagley (6-0), and at Iowa, B.J Armstrong (6-2).
"We had little guards," said Pearl. "Little guards didn't bother me."
Pearl invited Harper to visit the Plains, where a heart-to-heart conversation ensued.
"I asked him, 'Do you want to play in the SEC?'" Pearl recalled. "He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Do you think Kentucky, Georgia or Florida are going to offer you a scholarship?' He said, 'Probably not.'
"I said, 'Well, I'm offering you one right now, to be the leader of my program for the next four years. We're not very good right now, but I promise you, if you come to Auburn, you'll be playing for championships.'
"He took me at my word. Promises made, promises kept. Boom," said Pearl, the last word effectively serving as a mic drop that ended his post-practice session with reporters.
The 5-11 Harper has teamed with another Atlanta area guard, Bryce Brown, to give Auburn one of the nation's best backcourts. Between them, they average 31.2 points per game.
"I thought Auburn was a good situation for me," Harper said in Salt Lake City, where he scored 35 points against New Mexico State and Kansas to help lead the Tigers to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003. "It was closer to home. To play as a freshman, that was another big thing in this, and I wanted to be part of making history."
A win tonight vs. the Tar Heels would certainly qualify as history-making. Only once before, in 1986, has Auburn advanced to the Elite Eight.
Five years ago, on an early summer morning, Jared Harper flashed the skills that Auburn fans would soon see for themselves. Averaging 5.8 assists per game, he's become the "special" player Pearl foresaw.
"It's a perfect situation for me and Bryce and for my teammates to come in and make history," Harper said.
"I promise you. If you come to Auburn, you'll be playing for championships."
— Jeff Shearer (@jeff_shearer) March 28, 2019
🗣@coachbrucepearl on recruitment of @Therealvinoo
"I'm offering you one right now, to be the leader of my program for the next four years....He took me at my word." pic.twitter.com/irz5bRWb11
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer