MANILA, Philippines -- A rough start to the second round of UAAP Season 84 has seen Zavier Lucero of the University of the Philippines (UP) lose his status as the league's leading scorer.

Lucero ended the first round averaging 15.29 points per game on 62.32% shooting, the best mark in the UAAP. He opened the second round on a strong note, with 16 points and eight rebounds in UP's 84-76 win against National University.

What followed was three straight subpar games, including a seven-point, seven-rebound outing in a 66-58 loss to Adamson University -- UP's second defeat of the season. In a slim 72-69 win against De La Salle University on Saturday, Lucero had nine points and eight rebounds, with three turnovers.

But his low scoring outputs didn't faze Lucero, who was a top contender for Most Valuable Player honors after the first round, along with Ateneo de Manila University center Ange Koume.

"As much as I wanna play well, it's never gonna be just about me or how I play," said Lucero. "We've been winning for the most part, you know, we dropped one game."

"Me not performing to the level that I did in the first round, it's just part of basketball. Can't look too much deeper into it than that," he added.

On Tuesday against University of the East (UE), Lucero made sure his slump wouldn't extend to a fourth game. Facing a winless UE squad, the Filipino-American forward made seven of his 12 shots for 20 points, while grabbing 14 rebounds and blocking three shots.

He was a plus-19 in 27 minutes, and the Fighting Maroons cruised to an 81-68 win.

Lucero kept his performance against UE in perspective, opting to focus instead on the result. Their win, along with La Salle's loss to Far Eastern University earlier Tuesday, assured the Fighting Maroons of a twice-to-beat advantage in the Final 4.

"I'm just worried about how we can continue to build going into the playoffs," said Lucero, who entered the game averaging 13.27 points per game, the fifth-best mark in the league.

"It's about these last few games going to the playoffs, and [being] in the right condition to win games when we get there," he also said. "I thought we built on that today. The trick is to just keep it going and keep building."

The Fighting Maroons will play University of Santo Tomas on Thursday before wrapping up their elimination round campaign against defending champion Ateneo on Sunday.