Justin Powell hasn’t been cleared to return to practice, but he is getting closer.

The freshman guard suffered a concussion on Jan. 2 against Texas A&M and has been recovering ever since.

Now, with just a few weeks left in the season, Powell is starting to work his way back to the court.

"He's doing better. I don't know. You know, I don't know," Pearl said on if Powell will return this season. "With only a few weeks left in the season, he's still not back yet. But he's doing better. He's able now to get all of his work done academically, or a lot of it. Gosh, the month of January he was barely able to do much of his classwork. He's back there and getting caught up. He's been in the weight room a couple of times a week. He's getting shots now. But he hasn't been cleared to come back to practice."

As of now, Auburn has games against LSU, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama remaining on the schedule, along with a postponed Mississippi State game that Pearl expects to be on March 6.

“You can probably do the math and of course my job is always, always, always to put kids in positions to be successful,” Pearl said. “You don’t ask them to do stuff before they’re ready. You hide what they can’t do so they don’t get exposed. And we wouldn’t put Justin out there until he’s ready.”

Though, Pearl isn’t completely ruling him out for the rest of the season.

“But I’m not going to make that announcement with three weeks left to go, because I just don’t know,” Pearl said.

Before going down with the concussion, Powell was averaging 11.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game. Powell was shooting 42.9% from the floor and 44.2% from beyond the arc.

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