Alabama State and St. Francis (PA) fought to a photo finish in the First Four for the right to face Auburn in March Madness's Round of 64. The Hornets had a Hail Mary pass from Micah Simpson caught by Amarr Knox leading to an open layup at the buzzer for a 70-68 win.
As CBS Sports' Garry Parrish pointed out, Hornets head coach Tony Madlock was a Melrose High graduate and Knox was a Bartlett High product. Hence the Madlock shoutout to the city of Memphis on the truTV broadcast.
ASU advances to face the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 overall seed, a school 52 miles east on I-85.
Among the various storylines emanating from Alabama State-Auburn include: Madlock being a longtime Tony Barbee assistant, both teams having cores who've stuck together for multiple years, and, of course, the in-state aspect.
Of course, the national storyline is whether or not the Tigers are together right now. Few are giving the lowest overall seed in the tournament much of a chance to win. But Auburn is one of the few teams with the metrics to win it all -- losing three of their last four games before the tournament notwithstanding. Hopefully.
Bruce Pearl must keep Chad Baker-Mazara in line while also setting Johni Broome up to be the focal point of the offense. AU gets easy buckets from Broome and there won't be much sweating against the Hornets.
Alabama State takes on Auburn in the South Region's No. 1-No. 16 game on Thursday at 1:50 P.M. on CBS.