ZAVIER LUCERO, the University of the Philippines’s (UP) blue chip recruit from Cal State Maritime Academy, is largely responsible for the Fighting Maroons’ runaway performance in the ongoing University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball tournament.
The two-and-done, Swiss knife UP Men’s Basketball Team (UPMBT) player has been wowing the crowd and earning accolades from the TV panel when he does his stuff on both ends of the court. He brings skill, energy, athleticism and bounce to UP’s game, making people notice that his name (which he prefers to be said in full instead of the shorter “Zeyv”) rhymes with “savior,” which he is to the UP faithful.
Right now he is a candidate for Season 84 Most Valuable Player and running neck and neck with Ateneo’s Ange Kouame who leads him by just one statistical point—the sole basis of MVP voting in this collegiate league. Kouame has 68 SP’s against Lucero’s 67. A far third is La Salle’s Justine Baltazar with 58.
Lucero is here on his own. His immediate family is in the States and he has planted himself solidly within the campus community in the mini-forest of UP Diliman. He is growing lushly there.
Why did he go to UP? His answer, based on an article written by Lui Morales for online news site Philstar.com, is quite odd. Where others say their parents and ancestors were alumni of the school, or they’re doing it for the education, or they so admire and believe in the coach, Lucero says: it’s the fan base.
“That was one of the things I came to UP [for] was because I heard so much about their support system and their fan base,” he told Lui.
True. The UP crowd—a sea of Maroon that pulsates and sways and puts its arms together to clap rhythmically to its iconic yell of U-ni-ber-si-dad ng Pi-li-pi-nas—can produce one of the strongest reverberations in playing arenas.
The size and number of the crowd can be staggering, especially at full size. Before the pandemic halted action, the UP crowd could fill up majority of the space in playing venues, with plenty more fans waiting for access at the ticket booths.
Even now with just limited numbers allowed inside the Mall of Asia Arena, current site of UAAP basketball battles, the UP crowd occupies majority of the seats in the stands.
It wasn’t always like that. Had Zavier Lucero been born earlier and had been asked to play for UP, maybe he wouldn’t have. “The UP Crowd” was an oxymoron, because there was none.
To count 50, 40 or even 20 people showing up for UP back in say, the 90s, was like being rained with manna from heaven. Only a very few committed souls came to watch UP games. Hardly anybody cared.
For one, UP would more often than not, lose. Nobody wanted to cheer for a losing team and absorb all the bad vibes after a lost game. Academics was the main focus of UP student and faculty life. Sports was just a diversion. Sports programs, operating on meager state university budgets, had no support.
So the crowd stayed away. Until it got worse. Two 0-14 seasons put UP in the pits, crushing Maroon Pride like nothing else.
But when you’re at your lowest, you can only look up. That’s where nowheretogobutUP was born. This visionary, impassioned and committed alumni group said enough is enough and turned everything around.
Slowly, surely, things changed. Recruitment became an adventure. Coaching leveled up. Support came from all directions—from the grassroots, from fellow alumni and even unlikely sources. The crowds grew with every season.
In Season 81, UP struck gold. OK, silver. Landing in the finals on a magical run was when the UP crowd came out in droves. Since then, it has never dwindled. Today they come, rain or shine, during office hours, on holidays, who cares where.
It doesn’t matter if the games start at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. They’re loud and rowdy, committed, passionate.
After decades of sleeping and not caring, UP fans now show adoring love. That’s the crowd Zavier Lucero is fighting for. Along with his Brother Maroons.