Saint Francis had a chance to win it, but a desperation heave from beyond the midcourt by Chris Moncrief fell short as time expired.
With the 70-68 win, ASU advanced to take on No. 1 seed Auburn on Thursday in the round of 64 in Lexington, Ky.
“Well, first we wanted to throw the ball long, and we put our tallest athletic person to go get the ball, and fortunately everybody tipped the ball, and it landed to me, and I got the rebound and made the layup,” said Knox, who finished with a team-high 16 points.
“Couldn’t have done it without my whole team. We instituted a play that we practice on all day in practice, and it worked.”
The Hornets (20-15) won a national postseason game for the first time in school history.
Saint Francis led for most of the game until CJ Hines put the Hornets on top 62-60 with a 3-pointer with 4:24 to go in the second half.
SFU’s Juan Cranford Jr. tied it with a driving layup two minutes later, his first basket of the second half, but Knox put the Hornets back on to with a high-arching layup from an impossible angle.
Micah Octave gave them a four-point lead with a breakaway dunk, but Cranford answered with a 3-pointer to draw the Red Flash within one, and Moncrief tied it with a trey after a basket by TJ Madlock.
Madlock then was fouled in a scramble for a rebound, putting him at the free throw line for one-and-one 11.8 seconds left.
He missed the front end, and Saint Francis got the rebound.
However, the Red Flash turned it over with 3.4 seconds left to set up the game-winning play for Alabama State.
“We’ve been here before,” said SFU coach Rob Krimmel. “We needed to make a play. We decided to get the ball at that point to Juan and Val, get them to connect and come up with some points, and fortunately we did. And then at that point it was a game situation that we’ve been in quite a bit here in the last couple of weeks, and unfortunately we were two points short.”
Cranford, a freshman from Dayton who starred at Wayne High School, finished with a game-high 18 points for Saint Francis while Knox had 16 and Madlock added 11 for the Hornets.
“I couldn’t ask for anything else better than this,” said a sullen Cranford, who was the Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year and MVP of the NEC tournament. “This is a dream for me, especially being here at home where I grew up. This is a great opportunity for me and experience. I honestly wouldn’t want anything else but this.”
Alabama State led early, but Cranford made back-to-back 3s to put the Red Flash on top 12-10 with just under 14 minutes to go in the first half.
He hit another trey to extend the lead back to six with just over four minutes left, and a fourth four an eight-point lead with under two minutes to go.
The Red Flash led 39-34 at the half with Cranford leading all scorers with 13 points.
He four of five 3-pointers and grabbed six rebounds – also a game high – while drawing three fouls.
D’Ante Bass led Alabama State with eight points in the first half.
The Red Flash shot 13 for 22 (59.1%) in the first half but committed nine turnovers that turned into 15 points for the Hornets.
ASU also got 19 points off the bench in the first 20 minutes while SFU had none.
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