CIAA basketball tournament: Fayetteville State upsets Johnson C. Smith, makes championship

Fayetteville State’s change in culture is one game from a CIAA tournament championship.

The Broncos, the South Division’s third seed, beat top-seeded Johnson C. Smith 56-48 in the semifinals Friday at Spectrum Center to earn a spot in Saturday’s title game against the Winston-Salem State-Claflin winner. Fayetteville State (24-7), which was predicted to finish in the bottom half of the division with first-year coach Luke D’Alessio, survived a late J.C. Smith (20-8) rally with big plays down the stretch.

“In the past, I guess (Fayetteville State) hadn’t been doing too good but I feel like this is the year we’re going to get one,” said sophomore guard Jalen Spicer, a transfer from North Carolina A&T who scored 12 points to go with five assists. “Coming from where I come from, we didn’t have a winning past, but I don’t like losing, so coach brought me here to win games.”

Fayetteville State’s stifling defense made it possible to advance, as the Broncos held J.C. Smith to a season low for points on 33.3% shooting, including 26.3% in the first half.

“I’ve said all season long that defense wins championships and we bought into it,” D’Alessio said. “We outrebounded them by 10 rebounds, we held (Cayse) Minor in check most of the game until he got hot in the second half and their second-leading scorer (Nenad Milenkovic) had only six points.”

Fayetteville State opened a 12-point lead in the first half before taking a 26-10 advantage into intermission. The Broncos, who connected on 45.6% of their shots (11 of 24) compared to J.C. Smith’s 26.3% (5 of 19), limited Minor, an all-conference guard, scoreless with just one shot. “They were denying the ball a little bit,” Minor said. “Going into the game, I kind of knew that so I tried to let the game come to me a little bit, try to move the ball and not force my offense, but I messed around and picked up two fouls and had to sit a little bit in the first half.’

While Minor and J.C. Smith struggled offensively, Fayetteville State was efficient, especially inside with 6-10 center Will Brown scoring 12 points on 5 of 8 shooting. He also hauled down 17 rebounds and blocked three shots. The Broncos, outscored J.C. Smith in the paint 32-14 and converted 17 Bulls turnovers into 19 points.

The Golden Bulls, ranked eighth in this week’s Division II Atlantic Region poll, never looked comfortable against Fayetteville State’s defensive pressure until the Broncos build a 15-point cushion with 6:31 to play. Minor scored all 18 of his team-leading points after intermission as the Golden Bulls pulled to within 52-46 with 3:06 left. That was as close as they’d get, though.

“It was a very tough game,” D’Alessio said. “Johnson C. Smith is well-coached, a lot of tradition there, they have a great system and they play to it. We fought because it wasn’t easy.”