Fayetteville State basketball on upward trajectory despite disappointing CIAA Tournament loss
Achieving success is hard. Maintaining it is harder.
The Fayetteville State men's basketball program has been steadily ticking off its list of goals since the arrival of coach Luke D'Alessio in the spring of 2019.
CIAA Tournament finals. Check.
CIAA Tournament championship. Check.
NCAA Tournament berth. Check.
And while this season ended one game short of the conference championship, with D'Alessio sitting on a milestone of 400 wins as a head coach in the college ranks, the Broncos managed to cross another goal off their checklist with a Southern Division regular-season title.
They didn't get the repeat ring, but they didn't leave Baltimore without any hardware. That division-championship trophy will certainly mark success when they look back. Still, it didn't offer much consolation in the moment. Once you've tasted glory, you stay hungry.
"We expect to win," D'Alessio said after FSU's CIAA Final Four loss to Lincoln, 53-49, on Friday night, flanked by seniors Cress Worthy and DJ Myers.
They'll always have the 2022 title. The next squad up will be chasing it.
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"It hurts," D'Alessio said of the loss. "Hopefully, it hurts enough that they're going to work hard in the offseason and that's going to be a goal for us next year," he added, already fueling the motivation it will take to grind out another season on top.
Responding to failure is one of the building blocks to success.
Before the Broncos ended their CIAA championship drought of nearly 50 years with the 2022 title, they lost a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter of the 2020 final and finished as the runner-up. There's no doubt that loss became a starting block that would set their course as champions.
You might call it a second effort. It's a broader example of what D'Alessio stresses at every practice.
"I preach to them about multiple efforts on defense, not the initial effort," he said after a late-season win over eventual champion Winston-Salem State. "You've got to make a second play, a third play, a fourth play, and that's what we did today. We were really working."
That philosophy extends all the way to D'Alessio's roster-building and the buy-in of so many second-chance Division I transfers.
Coaching with Bruen, Valvano, Patsos, Moton
The coaching tree that fed D'Alessio was rooted with Catholic University's Jack Bruen, who played with Kareem Abdul-Jabaar in high school and would go on to lead Colgate to back-to-back conference titles and NCAA Tournament appearances.
D'Alessio's also coached with Bob Valvano (younger brother of the late Jim Valvano), Jimmy Patsos (who famously defended Steph Curry with a triangle-and-two) and LeVelle Moton (NC Central's uplifting community leader who has claimed four straight MEAC titles).
"I've gotten lucky," D'Alessio said. "When I was an assistant coach, I worked with some really good people. I've learned a lot and I incorporate that with the stuff that I put in. I try to learn things all the time."
Long before transfer rule changes created a free-agent feel in college basketball with players allowed to move from DI to DI and play immediately, D'Alessio was learning how to win with rosters he pieced together from a mix of local talent, program-developed guys, and those who sought a second chance after playing on the highest level of college basketball.
He was well ahead of the transfer portal curve, and his ability to not only lure DI talent to his teams but get the effort, persistence and commitment to win made D'Alessio a program builder in the JUCO and DII ranks.
Maybe his recruiting pitch was relatable. D'Alessio had spent 16 years working day jobs in accounting while he punched his way up to a full-time head coaching position at Bowie State. While raising a family. And while putting up winning percentages in the 60s and 70s.
It only took two seasons for D'Alessio to deliver Bowie State's first winning record in 30 years. He led the Bulldogs to the 2003 DII Final Four during a 10-year tenure that ended with a new administration's change of course.
But that was two decades ago. The work begins again every season at FSU.
With a 62-30 (.674) record over the last three seasons and consecutive finishes of runner-up, conference champion and division titlist, the FSU basketball program is on an extreme upward trajectory.
Returning players Tyler Foster, Marcus Elliott, D'Marco Baucum, Tony Hauser, Kaleb Coleman, Joshua Wiggins and Khalil Ridges will bring the motivation of thwarted expectations into next season. And there's no doubt D'Alessio has already begun to search for more talent, utilizing a career's-worth of connections along with the offer of hoisting a trophy and the chance to build a legacy.
"Heart first," D'Alessio says when asked what he looks for in a player. Talent, character and coachability are mandatory. So is effort.
"I tell the players, the one thing you can control is how hard you work," D'Alessio said. "If we lose, I work harder. Same thing with players. If you're in a shooting slump, you'd better get in the gym and work harder. It's the only thing I know that gets you out of that stuff is just to work harder."
Now that Fayetteville State has worked its way back into the small group of perennial CIAA contenders, don't expect D'Alessio and his staff to let up.
That's how Broncos are built.
Sports editor Monica Holland can be reached at mholland@fayobserver.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville State basketball on upward trajectory despite disappointing CIAA Tournament loss
