Reports: Two Auburn men’s basketball players won’t travel to Houston following in-flight altercation

Freshman guard Jahki Howard and senior forward Ja‘Heim Hudson will not travel to Houston for Auburn’s game against Houston Saturday night, according to multiple reports.

Justin Hokanson of On3 was first to report the story.

This comes after reports Friday night indicated that an in-flight altercation forced the team plane to return to the airport shortly after taking off.

The report from On3 says Howard and Hudson were the two players involved in the altercation.

According to a report from WBRC Friday night, Air Traffic Control audio showed a pilot in that airspace saying, “we have a bunch of basketball players fighting.” The audio also included the pilot saying “flight deck is secure the threat level is contained. We just had—we’ll have police on the ground, we had 2 players that got into a physical altercation, clothes were ripped.”

An Auburn spokesperson told AL.com at 9:46 Friday night that the new flight with the team had departed for Houston.

Howard and Hudson both played in Auburn season-opening win over Vermont, scoring seven and two points respectively.

Auburn and Houston are scheduled to tip off at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com