KANSAS CITY – Perhaps in the end, a healthy and spry Nassir Little and Cam Johnson would have made a difference in North Carolina’s loss to Auburn in the Sweet 16 Friday night at Sprint Center.

But then again, maybe not.

It doesn’t matter at this point, because UNC’s season ended amid an array of 3-pointers by the Tigers and its own struggles shooting and on the glass to the tune of a 97-80 defeat in the Midwest Region. Their absences, however, were still factors in how the Heels played and the game’s outcome. But there weren’t any excuses emanating from North Carolina’s locker room or during its postgame press conference at the dais following the game.

“It was tough for us today,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said. “Cam is not up here because he's throwing up. His temperature went up to 100 last night as well. Nassir was over a 100 yesterday, and Nassir didn't have as much lift as he had, and Cam wasn't the same person on the court.

“Those are excuses. We've got to congratulate Auburn and Bruce and the job that he and his coaching staff did.”

UNC first learned that Little was sick early Wednesday. By the evening he wasn’t eating and was weak with a fever above 100 degrees. He didn’t join the team for practice at Sprint Center on Thursday but was at Friday’s shoot around. He played, though just 13 minutes, and he was significantly hampered by having flu-like symptoms.

“(Thursday) was bad,” Little said. “I wasn’t able to eat, couldn’t sleep, I had like an 102 (degree) fever, coughing, sneezing, all that type of stuff. I was light headed, dizzy, I had to get an IV for like two hours and then I felt a little bit better, took some medicine, went to sleep, woke up. Still wasn’t all the way there.

“On the court, the hardest thing was just breathing, I couldn’t really breathe because I had a lot of mucus in my chest. So it was really hard for me to breathe and I think that affected me today.”

Little scored four points on 2-for-7 shooting and grabbed four rebounds. Four of his shots were blocked, including three at the rim and the other a 3-point attempt. He clearly had problems exploding in the lane and defending.

“He played through it but he’s nowhere near 100 percent health wise…,” fellow freshman Coby White said. “I could tell a couple (times) up and down the court, he’s not running as hard he normally does, not jumping as high as he normally does.”

Johnson was not available to the media in the locker room after the game, as he was in the back vomiting. The 6-foot-9 senior equaled White with a team-leading 15 points on the night, but he was just 4-for-11 from the field, including 2-for-7 from 3-point range. And after handing out seven assists last Sunday against Washington, Johnson had none Friday night.

He clearly wasn’t himself all night. Neither was Little.

“It's tough and frustrating,” senior Kenny Williams said. “We've been dealing with injuries all year. So, once we finally got to full strength, we had some guys go down with sicknesses.”

And as a result, down went Carolina’s season.