Zavier Lucero Dominates The Paint As UP Overwhelms UST

Zavier Lucero Dominates The Paint As UP Overwhelms UST

Zavier Lucero and the UP Fighting Maroons bucked a lackluster first half trailing the UST Growling Tigers 46-48 and played with gusto in the second half to engineer a 17-point turnaround in the 3rd quarter 78-63 enroute to a 98-78 romp. Lucero was unstoppable making 9 of 10 shots inside the paint and collaring 8 rebounds.  The Tigers are playing without an import so they are not much of an opponent for the highly-touted Maroons. Or so it seemed. UST took the fight to UP in the first half even leading as much as 18-7 in the first quarter and 39-27 in the second quarter with Sherwin Concepcion hitting 4 3s ably assisted by Nicael Cabanero, Miguel Pangilinan and Joshua Fontanilla. Lucero kept plugging away at the lead challenging the small UST frontcourt and scoring on easy layups and post-up plays. Another energy guy James Spencer was all around. Ricci Rivero and Carl Tamayo were slowly getting into game shape. Rivero leads the Maroons scoring with 19 points, Lucero 18, Tamayo 18 and Spencer 11. Concepcion paced the Tigers with 19 points while Fontanilla had 17, Cabanero 16 and Pangilinan 13.