MINNEAPOLIS — Far too often, wide-eyed dreams of young boys who imagined they could one day be Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry, or at least survive and advance to a Final Four, are shattered too early — their sacrifices made in vain, and the coaches and parents who cheered them on through thick and thin feel the heartbreak as well.

But once in a while, you find a 5-foot-10 father who played point guard at Elizabeth City State College (N.C.) who began coaching his first-born son when the boy began playing for AAU teams named World Wide Renegades and Southern Stampede on the Nike circuit — and never really stopped coaching him when his Little Big Man grew all the way to 5-11. Only Virginia and the Michigan State-Texas Tech winner stand between Auburn’s Little Big Man and “One Shining Moment” now.

If anyone should have known better than to ever doubt Jared Harper, it is, of course, Patrick Harper.

“He doesn’t think about his size when he’s playing,” the father said by phone. “He steps on the court, you see these big guys pushing him, guarding him. … You know what? It doesn’t faze him at all, because growing up, he always played up a level in AAU, he never really played his age because I figured that he’ll probably be a smaller guard so he needed to be challenged more. He needed to be tougher, he needed to understand how to play against bigger and stronger people, which I think helps him now in playing ball now.”

It sure helped Jared when he led the Georgia Stars to the Peach Jam championship with 36 points. It sure helped him own overtime against Kentucky in an Elite Eight upset.

“When he was in middle school, I would take him to the high school championship, so he got an opportunity to play in two high school championships,” Patrick said. “When he was younger growing up, I would take him to Peach Jam championships just to sit down and watch and get a good feel for it, and, he played in it and he won a Peach Jam championship.

“His senior year in high school, I took him to see Tyler Ulis in Kentucky in the SEC Championships, because I know that hey, he’s gonna have an opportunity to play here, so he won an SEC Championship. Also his high school year, he participated in a three-on-three competition, and I bought tickets to go to the Final Four in Houston, just to kind of look at it, see it, just see what it’s like to be on this stage, so I kind of strategically prepared him for each level of his process.”

Jared is forever grateful.

“He pushes me to be a great player, he pushed me to work hard knowing that I wasn’t gonna be one of the tallest people on the court,” the Little Big Man said, “but I could be one of the smartest people on the court.”

And quickest. He is a blur on his way to the basket.

“I feel I do a good job of being able to shoot but also being able to get downhill and make plays for my teammates,” Jared said.

Patrick says Jared is more comparable to him than his younger son Jalen, a senior at Pebblebrook High School who is headed to Florida Gulf Coast on a scholarship.

“I was similar — always the smallest on my team whenever I played,” Patrick said. “I was a good shooter, but he shoots the ball better. I kind of taught him things that I might not have picked up on. The head coach would say, ‘Hey, Harper, What do you think about this?’ So he kind of let me have input with my college guys kind of similar to what Jared does with [coach Bruce Pearl] at Auburn. He lets Jared call a lot of sets, he lets him run the offense, he lets him be involved, because one of the things I taught him is you gotta know all five positions on the floor, you gotta know what everybody’s doing, and as you’re seeing him playing, he’s pointing, making sure everyone knows where to go.”

Patrick will be at U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday with his wife, Erica, and younger son.

“What stands out to me is his ability to recover quickly in a sense that if he shoots a couple of shots and misses, he still has the motivation to shoot it again or a lot of times the shot will start falling,” Erica said. “What stands out is his mentality of not giving up. And if his shot isn’t falling, trying to find other ways to help the team win.”

Her Little Big Man — who averaged 15.4 points and 5.8 assists this season — is confident he can play in the NBA one day.

“I would say because of his size, it’s perceived that he’s an underdog,” Erica said, “but he doesn’t let that define him.”

He lets that drive him.

“I’ve always heard like, ‘Oh if you were 6-2, 6-3, you could be this, you could be that,’ ” Jared said. “But I feel like the size I am has helped me more than anything, just giving me that chip and that work ethic to want to be great.”

And now Jared Harper and backcourt buddy Bryce Brown try to lead Auburn to its first NCAA Championship game just as he pictured it when he first committed to the school an hour-and-a-half from his Mableton, Ga., home and told his father there would one day be a “30 for 30” on the resurgence of Auburn basketball.

Auburn’s Little Big Man likes the big stage.

“I just feel like it’s just another point for me to prove myself, I feel like I’ve been counted out my entire life,” Jared said, “so I’m able to come out here and showcase and show people that I’m legit, I’m a good player.”

In the biggest game of Little Big Man’s life, don’t expect him to come up small.