The University of Macao (UM), as the only public university in Macao, and is committed to the development of sports in student life. There are 18 sports teams in UM.

 

The UM men's basketball team is the best university basketball team in Macao. They won the first place at the University Basketball Championship in 2017. However, the UM men's basketball team was not a strong team a few years ago. In 2013, it joined for the first time the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA). As the first Macao team in CUBA, the UM team did not perform well in the first two years as it was made up of students who lacked professional training and skills.

 

In 2015, UM decided to offer the "UM Outstanding Student-Athletes Awards Scheme" to student-athletes who have accomplished remarkable sports achievement and to encourage them to pursue higher academic qualifications while continue to make breakthrough in their sports. 

 

Each year, UM will select some good basketball players from the mainland, and test them first about their academic levels and basketball skills. UM will then offer a scholarship to the top two students. The university will waive their tuition and college fees. This enrollment system provides UM with more excellent student-athletes. Grace Chou, the director of the Office of Sports Affairs (OSA said that they will supervise and improve this student-athletes scholarship program so as to recruit more distinguished players to join the UM team and hopefully improve the ranking in CUBA competitions in the next few years. They will also pay more attention to the academic performance of these student-athletes.

 

In 2017, the UM team became the largest black horse in the 19th CUBA League. This year, the UM team achieved an undefeated result in the group stage and entered the finals with the game against the Central South University which was the defending Champion on March 20. Eventually, the team became the 1st runner-up in the CUBA League (southwest region) and qualified to go forward to the National Championship.  "More and more ranking athletes and quality training are the reasons why we can be the black horse," said Fuin Lao, the coach of the UM men's basketball team.