KANSAS CITY — As the games got bigger, so did the clocks. Kansas, a team whose veteran core is as stone-faced as it is talented— in order of most to least expressionless, that core is senior power forward Perry Ellis, and junior guards Frank Mason and Wayne Selden Jr.—acquired a spirit animal en route to winning the Big 12 tournament.
He is Selden’s uncle, Anthony Pitts Jr. of Boston, and his gameday routine is to find a Family Dollar or similar discount retailer, purchase a clock, customize its face with a photo of Selden, and wear it on a chain around his neck, in the 1980s style of Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav.