Marcaccini Says Pepperdine Isn’t a Sure Thing

Monte Marcaccini, former basketball standout at Notre Dame High, has returned to the United States after playing in Italy, but contrary to published reports he has not decided to play at Pepperdine next season.

An area paper reported Tuesday that Marcaccini made an unofficial visit to Pepperdine last week and was expected to commit to the school later this month after getting a release from his Italian club team.

Marcaccini, who lived in Italy as a child, played for the past 10 months on an Italian junior team. He said he always intended to return to the United States after one season.

Because he was not paid to play in Italy, his NCAA eligibility was unaffected.

“I was kind of tripping when I read that because I never said I was going to go there,” Marcaccini said.

“I don’t want it to sound like I don’t like Pepperdine, because I do, but I can’t say for sure that that’s where I’m going to play.”

Marcaccini, who signed a letter of intent with Indiana as a high school senior before deciding to play in Italy, said Pepperdine’s recent hiring of Bob Mandeville as an assistant coach was a “big plus” in his eyes.

Still, that doesn’t mean he’s headed to the West Coast Conference school.

“If I go there, he would be one of the reasons why,” Marcaccini said.

“Even though he wasn’t officially the basketball coach at Notre Dame, I learned a lot from him when I was there. I worked with him a lot.”

Mandeville, 32, coached lower-level basketball teams at Notre Dame from 1986-89 and was the Knights’ varsity baseball coach from 1987-92.

He was a restricted earnings assistant basketball coach at San Diego State under Tony Fuller during the 1992-94 seasons.

When Fuller was named to replace Tom Asbury at Pepperdine earlier this year--Asbury resigned to take over at Kansas State--he hired Mandeville to fill the Waves’ vacant full-time assistant position.