Jared Harper: Five Things To Know About Auburn Point Guard

Jared Harper is a joy to watch. Auburn’s point guard just led them to the Final Four of the 2019 NCAA Tournament Final with a star-making performance in the Midwest Regional against Kentucky.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 5’10” point guard.

He looks like Marlo Stanfield from ‘The Wire’

Twitter has taken notice that Harper bears a striking resemblance to a prominent character from “The Wire.” Yep, he definitely looks like Marlo.

Recruiting wasn’t a breeze

Harper was the 90th-ranked player in the 2016 recruiting class according to the 247 Composite. He was also the 21st-ranked point guard. Despite that, Auburn and Ole Miss were his only major conference offers.

His other listed offers came from UAB, Richmond, Old Dominion, Middle Tennessee State, Kennesaw State, Kansas State, College of Charleston, Chattanooga, Brown and Arkansas State.

His high school numbers were ridiculous

During his senior season at Pebblebrook High School outside of Atlanta, Harper averaged 27.0 points, 10.1 assists, 5.7 rebounds and 3.7 steals. He also shot 49.0 percent from the field and an absurd 48.9 percent from 3-point range.

Harper was a two-time first-team All-State selection and led Pebblebrook to the 6A state title game during his junior and senior seasons. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, he finished high school with a 3.7 GPA.

He has steadily improved every season

As a junior this year Harper is averaging career-highs in points (15.2), rebounds (2.5), assists (5.9) and minutes per game (32.7). He’s also hitting career-bests in field goal percentage (39.9) and 3-pointers (37.5).

Harper’s numbers have improved every season. As a freshman he averaged 11.4 points, 1.9 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 24.2 minutes. Then as a sophomore those numbers improved to 13.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists in 30.5 minutes.

Bruce Pearl only needed to watch him once to fall in love

The first night Auburn coach Bruce Pearl went to see Harper he was sold on him. He recounted the story here:

"“When coaches go to see players sometimes you can have some fortune seeing them play well that night or sometimes you can go see them and they don’t play well that night. “I went and saw Jared Harper the first time against the Robinson kid (Brandon Robinson) from North Carolina over in Georgia and Jared played great. He was just in his junior year and I told my guys if we don’t get him committed now he will not be available after the summer time. He is special. He is the best little guard I have seen in a long, long time.”"

The rest is history.