Mel Thomas

Mel Thomas
Mel Thomas
College	Connecticut
Sport	Basketball
Position	shooting guard
Jersey #	25
Class	Graduated
Career	2004–present
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Nationality	USA
Born	(1985-08-26) August 26, 1985 Cincinnati, Ohio
High school	Mount Notre Dame High School, Cincinnati, Ohio
Awards
CoSIDA Women's Basketball Academic All-District I First Team

Mel Thomas

Medal record
Women's Basketball
Competitor for  United States
Pan American Games
Gold	2007 Brazil	Team Competition

Melanie Eileen "Mel" Thomas was born August 26, 1985 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Jeff and Mary Thomas ^[1] She is an American basketball player who played for the University of Connecticut Huskies from 2004-2008.

High school

Thomas won many awards during her High School basketball career for Cincinnati’s Mount Notre Dame High School. As a junior, she averaged 18.3 points, 5.2 assists and 3.7 rebounds while leading Mount Notre Dame H.S. to a 23-3 mark and a regional finals appearance. As a senior, she led the Cougars to a perfect 28-0 record and a Division I Ohio State Championship. She averaged 20.4 points 5.4 assists and 4.0 rebounds, and made several All America teams. Thomas was named a WBCA All-American.^[2] She participated in the 2004 WBCA High School All-America Game, where she scored two points.^[2]

College

Mel Thomas in Green Bay game

Thomas chose UConn over schools like Duke, Ohio State, and Cincinnati. Thomas struggled during her freshman season. In her sophomore season, she was named the BIG EAST’s Most Improved Player. She started all of the Huskies’ first 28 contests before sitting out the final two games of the regular season with a sprained right ankle, which she got in the Syracuse game on February 2, 2006. The next season (junior) was her breakout season. Thomas started in all 36 games as the Huskies’ shooting guard and tallied doublefigure points in 16 games, including three 20-plus scoring efforts. She made at least one 3-pointer in 35 of 36 games. In her junior and senior seasons, she co-captained the team with Renee Montgomery. She spent the summer prior to the start of her junior season playing for the USA Pan American Games Team, which became the first U.S. squad to capture the gold medal at the Pan American Games since 1987.^[3] In her senior season, Thomas scored her 1,000 point of her career against the Virginia Cavaliers on December 5, 2007 in a 75-45 UConn win.^[4] Nine games later, her season was cut short due to tearing her ACL and lateral meniscus against Syracuse on January 15, 2008. On January 21, 2008, against the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, Thomas was honored with her 1,000th point ball in front of a sold-out crowd at Gampel Pavilion.^[5] While sidelined with the injury during her senior year she wrote in a diary everyday and it later was made in to a book that she published called "Heart Of A Husky".^[6] She finished her UConn career with 1,098 career points, and is in the Top 5 in 3pt FG's made with 224 career three pointers.

Pro career

Thomas was hoping to be an early second-round pick or late second-round pick in the 2008 WNBA Draft, but she went undrafted because of the ACL injury.^[7] In October 2008, Thomas made it back to the court to play in her first professional basketball game for the Irish League's Waterford Wildcats. She scored 33 points in her first game.^[8] Thomas played for the Wildcats in Waterford, Ireland for one season. In March 2009, she was added to the Seattle Storm training camp roster along with Kasha Terry.^[9] Since July 2009, she is playing for Artego Bydgoszcz in the Polish league PLKK.

Coaching

Thomas joined the Florida Gulf Coast women's basketball staff as the director of operations in 2010. Although she had not heard of the school, prior to a tip from colleague Ann Strother that the Eagles were looking to fill the position, head coach Karl Smesko had heard of Thomas. She cannot do on-court coaching in her present position, which includes travel and film coordination, but she hopes to move into active coaching in the future. In her first season, the Gulf Coast team won the Atlantic Sun regular season, and earned a bid to the WNIT. In her second year, the Eagles were in their first year as a full Division I team, and won the Atlantic Sun Tournament, which qualified them for the NCAA Tournament.^[10][11]

Awards

• 2003 — Ohio Girls Basketball Magazine Dream Team selection^[12]
• 2002 — Adidas Top Ten Camp Underclass All-Star
• 2002 — Street & Smith All-America Honorable Mention
• 2003 — Street & Smith All-America Honorable Mention.
• 2003 — USA Today Super 25 choice
• 2003 — Nike All-American
• 2004 — McDonald’s All-America Team
• 2004 — WBCA All-America Team
• 2004 — Associated Press Ohio Co-Player of the Year
• 2004 — Cincinnati Metro Player of the Year
• 2004 — Ohio Ms. Basketball (2004) awarded by Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association^[13]
• 2006 — Big East Most Improved Player^[14]
• 2008 — CoSIDA Women's Basketball Academic All-District I First Team^[15]

University of Connecticut statistics

See also

• List of Connecticut women's basketball players with 1000 points

Notes

External links

• Official site
• WNBA Prospect page