So I saw that Meleek Thomas is the number 7 rated recruit in his class of 2025. That makes him an elite national recruit, and it gets me to thinking when was the last time Western Pennsylvania had a basketball recruit that was so highly rated?
Some recent names that might come to mind would be Herb Pope, DeJuan Blair and Terrell Pryor, but those guys were ranked 32, 30 and 39 respectively in their class. That's really good but not in Meleek Thomas's class
So I go back further and names that would come to mind would be Danny Fortson and Dante Calabria but I don't think they were anywhere near the rating of Meleek
So I'm gonna go even deeper into the way back machine to try to find a couple of names who would've had comparable national stature to Meleek.. I thought about Maurice Lucas, who was a big-time recruit on the 1971 Shenley team, but actually his teammate Ricky Coleman was even higher publicized, but I don't think equal to Meleek stature.
So I finally settled on one of two guys from the 1960s. The first is Kenny Durrett, who graduated Schenley in 1967 and absolutely put Shenley High on the map. He ended up going to LaSalle and was the second or third overall pick in the NBA draft.
My other candidate to equal Meleek in national notoriety is a name less well-known, Ron,Sepic 1963 graduate from Uniontown. Basketball state, champ, and Parade, All American in both basketball and football. But here was the clincher for me re national stature: This guy appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show as one of the five best players in America. One of the other players who appeared that nite was a kid named Lew Alcindor. Here is the Youtube link to the segment. That's pretty heady company for a Uniontown player and certainly establishes his bona fides as somebody with a national standing similar to Meleek. By the way, Sepic went on to be a three-year starter at Ohio State and I believe was drafted in both the NBA and NFL, but decided on dental school
Some recent names that might come to mind would be Herb Pope, DeJuan Blair and Terrell Pryor, but those guys were ranked 32, 30 and 39 respectively in their class. That's really good but not in Meleek Thomas's class
So I go back further and names that would come to mind would be Danny Fortson and Dante Calabria but I don't think they were anywhere near the rating of Meleek
So I'm gonna go even deeper into the way back machine to try to find a couple of names who would've had comparable national stature to Meleek.. I thought about Maurice Lucas, who was a big-time recruit on the 1971 Shenley team, but actually his teammate Ricky Coleman was even higher publicized, but I don't think equal to Meleek stature.
So I finally settled on one of two guys from the 1960s. The first is Kenny Durrett, who graduated Schenley in 1967 and absolutely put Shenley High on the map. He ended up going to LaSalle and was the second or third overall pick in the NBA draft.
My other candidate to equal Meleek in national notoriety is a name less well-known, Ron,Sepic 1963 graduate from Uniontown. Basketball state, champ, and Parade, All American in both basketball and football. But here was the clincher for me re national stature: This guy appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show as one of the five best players in America. One of the other players who appeared that nite was a kid named Lew Alcindor. Here is the Youtube link to the segment. That's pretty heady company for a Uniontown player and certainly establishes his bona fides as somebody with a national standing similar to Meleek. By the way, Sepic went on to be a three-year starter at Ohio State and I believe was drafted in both the NBA and NFL, but decided on dental school
