Arkansas signee Meleek Thomas urges fans to vote for him and Tennessee-bound teammate for OTE honors

Arkansas signee and the No. 11 recruit in the 2025 Class, Meleek Thomas has been turning heads for the City Reapers at Overtime Elite. With the season coming to a close, OTE has announced nominations for various awards, including MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Most Underrated.

Thomas took to his Instagram story to ask his fans to vote for him for the OTE MVP and his teammate Amari Evans for the Defensive Player of the Year Award.

"Vote me MVP. Vote Mari DPOY," Thomas wrote in his Instagram story.

Arkansas signee Meleek Thomas rallies fans to vote for OTE honors for him and Tennessee bound teammate (Image: IG/meleek.thomas)

However, the 6-foot-3 shooting guard will face tough competition from South Carolina signee Eli Ellis, Cincinnati signee Shon Abaev, Kentucky signee Jasper Johnson, Class of 2026 recruit Taylen Kinney and Auburn signee Kaden Magwood, who are all on the shortlist for the MVP award.

While Thomas also promoted Evans to win the DPOY Award, Eli Ellis' brother took to Instagram to share some stats to explain why he would be a fitter candidate.

"This award means a lot to me… I am following back every single person who votes for me for “DPOY” LINK IN MY BIO," Ellis captioned the post.

Furthermore, USC commit and son of the three-time NBA All-Star Alijah Arenas also asked fans to vote for Isaac Ellis:

Alijah Arenas' choice for OTE DPOY (Image: IG/alijah0arenas)

The DPOY finalists include Thomas Bassong, Amari Evans, Keshawn Fisher and Kai Rogers.

However, Meleek Thomas does have stats to back up his MVP contention. The 18-year-old has played 16 matches for the City Reapers and is averaging 26.6 points on 44.1% shooting, including 38.1% from beyond the arc. He also has 4.6 assists, 8.8 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 0.3 blocks per contest.

His best offensive performance came against the Blue Checks on Dec. 22, when he scored 39 points, grabbed three rebounds, dished out five assists and stole the ball twice.

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Meleek Thomas talks about winning the MVP Award

While Meleek Thomas is in the finalists for the prestigious award, he talked about it in an interview that City Reapers published last week on Instagram. Thomas was accompanied by his coach who emphasized that the guard never mentioned individual accolades.

When Meleek Thomas was asked if he wanted to win the MVP, he said:

"100%." Thomas said. "I always want to keep adding achievements to my resume. Just keep building it because, in the end, I can't play basketball forever. So it's like, 'what did you do with your time?'"

"Obviously, I want MVP, but I'm not reaching for it, I'm not forcing it. If it happens, it happens for the right reason. God's gonna present that to me, but I never brought it up for a reason," he added.

Meleek Thomas will join Isaiah Sealy and Darius Acuff at the Razorbacks next season.