CLEVELAND MELVIN - ALL - MET ELITE

CLEVELAND MELVIN 

DEPAUL UNIVERSITY

 ALL - MET ELITE
BALTIMORE MD.

Cleveland Melvin tells no great tales — yet.

No tales of surviving the life in East Baltimore, Md., the neighborhood near urban ground zero for such happy TV fare as "Homicide: Life on the Street," "The Wire" and "The Corner."

No stories about the glory of DePaul basketball past — long past. No self-aggrandizement acknowledging being last season's Big East Rookie of the Year, an accolade achieved innumerable xBox reloads ago by the likes of NBA nobility-to-be including Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson and Patrick Ewing. Melvin is both buying in and selling. At a listed 6 feet 8 and 205 pounds with boing-like spring, he is a notably instinctive talent who remains very much a work-in-progress.

With the ball from 12 feet in, he nudges the untouchable continuum of the quick-and-done that stretches back from Tayshaun Prince to Bernard King. His unorthodoxy and will enable him to score from unbelievable positions.

Beyond 12 feet, he is — well, he is a work in progress. And that work checklist includes: jump shot, footwork and strength. Melvin has made an art of quietly fitting in since he was a lad in East Baltimore. Some would suggest it has been a survival skill.

"Cleve showed up at the (Cecil-Kirk) Center as one of the shyest 12-year-olds I'd ever seen," said Anthony "Dudie" Lewis, later Melvin's AAU coach. "But he was tall and lanky and I had coached his father (Cleveland Sr.). He was also respectful and wanted to play the game. So we got started."

By his final year at Lake Clifton High School, Melvin averaged 17 points and 11 rebounds as the Lakers finished 29-0 with city and state titles.

Then, it was a year at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass.

"For maturation, because of that 'No Child Left Behind' (stuff)," Lewis said.

"I had to get my SATs up," Melvin said.

While at Notre Dame, he took a Halloween weekend visit to DePaul in 2009 but orally committed to Connecticut. When coach Jim Calhoun insisted he would be developed as a power forward at UConn, he decommitted.

"If I am to play at a higher level, I think it will be as a wing," Melvin said. He soared so high that he was named conference Rookie of the Year despite missing the final four games of the season with a broken thumb. He finished averaging 17.4 points per game in Big East play (14.3 overall) and shooting 52 percent.