Meleek Thomas, the No. 11 recruit in the Class of 2025 (according to On3's Industry Rankings), finished his senior year with the City Reapers in the OTE. Thomas started his high school basketball career at North Hills in 2021 and then transferred to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School the next year.
The 6-foot-3 shooting guard received plenty of interest from top programs across the nation before signing with the Arkansas Razorbacks in November. He shared his commitment through his Instagram profile in collaboration with On3's Joe Tipton.
"5⭐️ Meleek Thomas, a top-10 recruit in the country, has committed to Arkansas, he tells @on3recruits 🐗," the post was captioned.
Let's have a look at some other colleges that were interested in signing Thomas.
Top 3 schools that were interested in signing Meleek Thomas
3. Pittsburgh Panthers
The Pittsburgh native took an unofficial visit to the Panthers on Aug. 1, 2022, and an official visit on March 9, 2023. The program was also listed in his top three list of colleges and was just 35-40 miles away from his former school, Lincoln Park.
However, it did not work out in the end, but Thomas had some good things to say about the program while speaking to On3, who gave the Panthers a 1.4% chance of landing the shooting guard:
"When Pitt gets a player, they develop them and let get them where they want to go. So seeing that is big.”
2. Kansas State Wildcats
While Kansas State did not make Meleek Thomas' list of top three programs, the program was still in contention to land him. His last official visit was to the Wildcats on Oct. 25. However, Meleek Thomas' addition would have been a strong point for Kansas State.
They have received hard commitments from a four-star small forward, Andrej Kostic, three-star point guard Exavier Wilson, center Stephen Osei and small forward Elias Rapieque.
1. UConn Huskies
Another program that was on Thomas' final list was UConn. He took an official visit on June 19 and was full of praise for the program.
“It was an amazing visit," Thomas told On3. "They’re back-to-back champions, so it is hard not to like. They have a winning culture, a hard and gritty culture. They get after it on defense and let that turn into offense."
Furthermore, according to Locked On UConn podcast host Mark Zanetto, the move did not go through because head coach Dan Hurley and his coaching staff were not happy about Thomas canceling his scheduled visits.
Meleek Thomas will now be joined by Darius Acuff, Isaiah Sealy and Karim Rtail next season.
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