Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl didn't have much to add in his weekly press conference about the status of forwards Jahki Howard and Ja'Heim Hudson following their involvement in a mid-flight altercation on the way to the Tigers' game against then-No. 4 Houston on Friday.

"It was obviously an unfortunate situation," Pearl said when asked about the pair's availability against Kent State on Wednesday night. "We're dealing with it head on. Those guys were in class and practiced on Monday."

Multiple outlets reported Friday that Auburn's initial flight to Houston was rerouted back to Auburn after "horseplay" between players was verging on escalation to a fight. It was also reported by multiple outlets that Howard and Hudson were left in Auburn on Friday when the Tigers took off for Houston a second time.

Neither logged minutes against the Cougars, nor were they on Auburn's bench.

Their absences weren't necessarily missed, however, as Auburn pulled off a top-five upset for just the third time in Pearl's Auburn tenure, beating Houston 74-69 on Saturday night.

The win saw a subsequent rankings bump for the Tigers, who went from No. 11 in both the USA TODAY Coaches and Associated Press polls to No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at acole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: When will Jahki Howard, Ja'Heim Hudson return for Auburn hoops?