Former Lincoln Park basketball star Meleek Thomas commits to Arkansas
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Monday, November 11, 2024 | 8:17 PM
Lincoln Park’s Meleek Thomas dunks against Hampton during the WPIAL Class 4A championship game Feb. 29 at Pitt.
Former Lincoln Park basketball star Meleek Thomas committed Monday to Arkansas.
A 6-foot-4 guard, Thomas bypassed what would’ve been his senior season this winter in the WPIAL to join a high-profile league in Atlanta. Thomas had narrowed his college options to the Razorbacks, Pitt or UConn.
In a social media video previewing his college decision, Thomas said he first talked with Arkansas coach John Calipari in seventh or eighth grade.
“When a coach of that caliber is coming to see you very young, it’s like, ‘Pay attention to that,’” Thomas said in the video.
Calipari, a Moon native, is in his first season at Arkansas after 15 years at Kentucky. Thomas said Calipari’s track record “says it all.”
“I always try to keep up with his players and who he sends to the league, but it’s like he has more and more every year,” Thomas said.
ESPN rated Thomas as a five-star prospect and ranked him ninth overall in the 2025 class. He received more than two dozen Division I offers including Duke, Kansas and Kentucky.
Thomas was a two-time Trib HSSN Boys Basketball Player of the Year after winning WPIAL and PIAA titles the past two winters. He announced last summer that he would forgo his senior season at Lincoln Park.
In April, Thomas agreed to an NIL deal with rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports and later joined Overtime Elite, an eight-team league in Atlanta for 16- to 20-year-olds.
The Overtime Elite season started Nov. 1.
Thomas scored 32 and 18 points in his first two games with the City Reapers while grabbing a dozen rebounds in each.
Another elite guard going to Coach John Calipari ???? @ThomasMeleek pic.twitter.com/anNi1MHaBm
— Overtime Elite (@OvertimeElite) November 12, 2024
Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.
Tags: Lincoln Park
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