BALTIMORE, Md. – For the second consecutive season, the Fayetteville State Broncos (20-8) will make an appearance in the 2022 Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Men's Basketball Tournament Finals after topping No. 5 Livingstone, 79-68, in one of two semifinal game's Friday night inside Royal Farms Arena.

"We've been waiting for two years to get back to this point," said Head Coach Luke D'Alessio during the post-game press conference. "A lot of things have happened over the past two years, and we have been working extremely hard.  The first thing I put on the board, and I underlined was 'mental and physical toughness'. If you want to beat Livingstone, you have to have that."

The top-seeded Fayetteville State will face the winner of Virginia Union and Winston-Salem State in the 2022 CIAA Men's Basketball Championship Saturday, Feb. 26 at 4 p.m.

The first half started as a back-and-forth affair before FSU's Zion Cousins put an exclamation mark on the Broncos 9-0 run with a jumper to make it a seven-point, 11-4, lead at the 15:07 mark. The Blue Bears would then face a deficit as large as 20 points when the Broncos orchestrated a 14-6 scoring margin for over seven minutes. Livingstone scored back-to-back baskets to close the gap to 16 but a free throw shot from Koraan Clemonts made it a 39-22 advantage in favor of the Broncos at the half.

Fayetteville State went back up to 21-points to start the second half on a 6-2 run. It took the Blue Bears over 11 minutes to plow away at the Broncos lead – chopping the deficit to 10 points thanks to a jumper from Cameron Carpenter with 3:52 remaining, but a bucket from Cress Worthy led to Fayetteville State owning at least an 11-point lead for the remainder the contest.

Zion Cousins recorded a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds in the winning effort.

"I pride myself on defense," said Cousins. "It has been a thing that I had to take seriously my whole collegiate career.

Tonight, we knew we had to make stops [against the conference's no. 1 offense]. We just believe in each other. We don't just rely on one or two people. We all pick each other up. That was the big part we did tonight. Everybody contributed to the win."

Worthy led all scorers with 22 points and eight rebounds on 8-of-16 shooting. He was named the Food Lions MVP.

"We are telling each other to keep our foot on the gas," added Cress Worthy when asked how the team stayed focused to finish out the second half. "We are building towards something that we want. We are not worried about all that other stuff. 

Koraan Clemonts followed with 17 points while Darian Dixon chipped in 16.

Livingstone (15-10) was led by Deshone Hicks with 18 points while Malik Smith added 12 points and Navar Elmore grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds to go along with eight points and a game-high five blocks.

This will be the Broncos' ninth championship appearance since 1957. The only time Fayetteville State won a men's basketball title was in 1973 when FSU defeated Norfolk State 94-89 in Greensboro, NC. In 2020, Luke D'Alessio coached the Broncos through all four rounds only to lose to Winston-Salem State 63-62 in the final seconds of the tournament in Charlotte, NC.