Oliver Antigua seemed relaxed sitting in his office before practice Monday afternoon and insisted there’s no pressure on him.

“This is fun,” said Antigua, who has taken over the reins of the basketball program at St. Raymond’s High School in The Bronx, one of the best in the nation. “It’s just basketball.”

Sure, but replacing Gary DeCesare, who left before the school year to become an assistant at the University of Richmond, and maintain the Ravens’ status as a top team in the city has to give the 27-year-old Antigua some anxiety, right?

“Pressure to me is not knowing where your next meal is coming from when you have no money,” said Antigua, who served under DeCesare for three years and makes his debut as head coach Dec. 6 against Bishop Loughlin. “Pressure is not having a place to live.”

For Antigua, those aren’t cliches. They are part of his childhood, one he spent in The Bronx with his mother and two brothers – and DeCesare.

In 1991, when Antigua and his older brother Orlando were students at St. Raymond’s, the family was evicted from its apartment.

“We were homeless,” Antigua said. “We didn’t have a place to live and we really didn’t know what we were going to do.”

While they tried to figure out where to stay so that they could still attend St. Raymond’s, the school’s administration and DeCesare stepped in.

Antigua’s mother, who was battling drug problems, had arrangements to stay with a friend, but the brothers would likely be split up.

“We had a lot of problems growing up,” Antigua said. “But it never got lower than that.”

The school told the boys they could stay at a nearby building, formerly a convent, but they needed a guardian, so DeCesare volunteered and temporarily moved out of the house he shared with his wife and lived with the Antiguas.

“When you’re a coach, those are the things you have to do,” DeCesare said. “It’s not just about basketball.”

The brothers stayed in the convent for several months before finding another apartment and returning to normalcy, but the time left an indelible mark on Antigua.

“You never forget something like that,” Antigua said. “It was a tough situation and we were embarrassed to go through it. You wonder what people are going to think about you when it happens, but Coach DeCesare made it OK.”

Antigua never played for DeCesare at St. Raymond’s – he was cut his junior year. Still, he followed his brother Orlando, a hoop star, to Pittsburgh and was a manager there. After graduating, he was hired as an assistant at the Big East school. But one year later, the staff was fired and Antigua returned to St. Raymond’s as a history teacher and assistant to DeCesare.

“This school has done so much for me, I just wanted to do something for it,” Antigua said.

He’s getting his chance.

“It wasn’t that hard getting used to him being the coach since he had been here for so long and we all knew him,” senior Tariq Atkins said. “He’s got a different style than DeCesare, but we know the program is in good hands.”