Prospect Profile: Marco Mattucci

The New Albany junior's one simple fix has made him one of the area's best shooters. He's now gotten the attention of college coaches and is ready to lead the Eagles

COLUMBUS, OH - The last year has been kind to New Albany basketball. Longtime former Upper Arlington head coach Tim Casey was hired for the same position with the Eagles in May of 2023 and took over an experienced team with seven seniors in a competitive OCC-Ohio division.

The results were impressive, as the Eagles were out right league champs for the first time since 2016, reached 20 wins and fell four points short to Newark in the district semifinals.

Braylen Nash, now a freshman walk-on at Ohio State, gathered the most accolades with a first team all-district selection after he averaged 17 points per game. Miles Jackson, now a senior, was honorable mention.

But after an encouraging sophomore year followed by a tremendous AAU season with Nova Village on the UA Rise circuit, there’s growing anticipation that New Albany junior Marco Mattucci has emerged as a key player to watch and one of the area’s best shooters.

The 6’4 guard lit up the net this summer, where he averaged 21 points per game and over 48% from three throughout Nova Village’s UA Rise Finals championship run. Earlier in the summer, Mattucci connected on ten triples in a game, nine in the first half.

The combination of size, athleticism and sharp-shooting led Mattucci to his first Division I offer in late July. He now plans to take several visits as he preps to lead New Albany back to a league title and beyond.

Mattucci was on his way to Coach Vic’s Open Gym invite-only session when he spent time to catch up with 270 Hoops about his hot summer, goals for the Eagles and how he was able to drastically, and quickly, improve his shooting ability.

270 Hoops: You’ve had quite the summer and appeared to have been one of the top players on your Nova Village team. Are you pleased with how things have gone these last few months? What were some highlights of the summer for you?

Marco Mattucci: These last few months, as far as Nova goes, we won our last 21 games of the year, our last 4 tournaments, the whole UA Rise circuit. It was big for all of us, we all played a role.

For me, I had at session II at UA a game where I went for 35 points and averaged like 20-something and shot the ball at a high rate. That’s when my recruiting took off. I was a guy that flew under the radar and played well in front of the right people.

In our semifinals, we came back from being down, I hit four threes in a row and scored 24 and hit five threes and scored 20 in the finals.

Your most notable asset seems to be your three-point shooting. Where does that skill come from?

Really, it kind of just took off this year. I’ve always been a guy that get shots up, I’m a gym rat, I’m always on the gun, but I wasn’t really happy with how I was shooting the ball. Before that first [AAU] tourney where recruiting took off, I told my mom, “my eyesight, it feels blurry.” I go and get it checked out, I ended up and got contacts and found out I’m nearsighted. Then, going into that weekend, it was the best basketball I’ve played my entire life.

I’ve always been a shooter. But playing varsity last year, it was my first year to really break down stats, I wasn’t really doing that in middle school. I saw my percentages, said “this is not where I need to be,” and I just tried reppin’ on the gun. I would get minor results. Nothing crazy. I had a headache one day and in the car, my eyes were blurry, my mom had me try on her glasses and it cleared up, since apparently we have the same vision. That’s when I got contacts, which was right before session II.

Towards the end of July, you received your first offer from Ohio University. How did that go down? Did it catch you by surprise?