Wayne Selden Jr. and UConn hero grew up playing together

It didn’t take long after the Jayhawks’ Big 12 semifinal victory over Baylor for Kansas junior guard Wayne Selden Jr. to see what everyone following the game on TV and Twitter had already viewed a number of times: the reaction to Selden’s monster jam from his uncle, Anthony Pitts, watching the game from his seat behind the KU bench.

“It was funny, because he’s always been like that,” Selden said, “since I was a kid playing basketball, playing football.”

When Baylor’s Ish Wainright made contact with Selden on the play, it actually gave the high-flying KU junior a bit of a boost, according to the man who hammered it home.

Still, Selden wasn’t willing to rate his highlight-reel slam ahead of the alley-oop Jamari Traylor pulled off at Texas just less than two weeks ago.

Actually, Selden didn’t even think he had the top play of the day. The junior from Roxbury, Mass., had to give that honor to Connecticut freshman Jalen Adams, whose desperation heave in triple-overtime against Cincinnati kept the Huskies alive in the American Athletic Conference Tournament and set up a quadruple-OT victory.

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Believe it or not, the two most impressive plays in the nation came from Roxbury, Mass., natives.

“I grew up with him. We actually played AAU from third grade ’til like sixth grade,” Selden revealed.

Selden said he was happy to see the UConn freshman hit the wild shot and score 22 points.

— See what people were saying about KU’s semifinal victory during KUsports.com’s live coverage

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