AUBURN — Bruce Pearl was asked Tuesday: Outside of Austin Wiley, will the team be at full health against Arkansas?

Pearl hesitated for two reasons.

Part of his pause centered around the status of Auburn guard Samir Doughty. Doughty battled through a foot injury at the end of last week, which restricted how many minutes he played against Vanderbilt. He practiced in full Monday, but Pearl said he hasn't been 100 percent since hurting it last Wednesday against Ole Miss.

"That’s why I hesitated when you asked if we're healthy: He practiced yesterday so he should be OK," Pearl said.

That wasn't the main reason for Pearl's hesitation, however.

Pearl wanted to add some clarity to the preface of the question, noting "outside of Wiley" suggests Wiley isn't back to normal.

"I think Austin is getting to the point where he’s now healthy," Pearl said.

Those comments come after a Monday practice that Pearl and senior guard Bryce Brown both called one of Wiley's hardest, most physical practices all season. Pearl has gradually upped Wiley's minutes in each of the last three contests against LSU, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.

Pearl admits to being cautious with Wiley's return.

But he doesn't want that to take away from how close he believes Wiley is to what he can (and will) be.

"Austin’s probably a guy that’s got the most upside. Yesterday was as long and as hard as Austin has gone. Yesterday was a really good practice for him to be able to get going. I just think that you’re going to see — it’s going to come on and when it does, it’s going to happen real fast," Pearl said. "It’s just going to be like, ‘Boom.’ I’m hoping for Austin that happens Wednesday night against [Arkansas center] Daniel Gafford."

When asked about Wiley, Brown halted a question mid-sentence to agree with Pearl on Wiley returning to top form.

"It'll suddenly click, mhmm," Brown said. "Just going back to when he first got here, when he was coming straight from high school, it took him a few games, and then it just clicked out of nowhere — maybe it was a practice or something. Austin had a pretty good practice yesterday, and he was flying around, running around. He actually, he was really exhausted, so the more he gets in shape, I feel like that when it will start to click for him."