He was the star of the last Seton Hall team to reach the Sweet 16 … 18 long years ago, and so Shaheen Holloway knows a team that believes when he sees one:

This Seton Hall team, which will try to upset No. 1 seed Kansas on Saturday in Wichita, Kan.

Yes they KAN.

“We believe we can win, we believe that we can play with them,” Holloway told The Post from Wichita. “Kansas is a great team, a great program. I think that we’re a good team. I think it’s gonna be a good game. I don’t want to give no predictions or nothing like that.

“But I know our guys ain’t backing down.”

Holloway, who has been Kevin Willard’s trusted associate head coach for eight years, helped recruit the senior class — Angel Delgado, Desi Rodriguez, Khadeen Carrington, Ismael Sanogo — to South Orange and deserves to be a head coach soon.

“These guys are hungry to prove themselves, and then for them to be on a stage like this playing against the No. 1 seed, it’s great for these guys,” Holloway said. “It’s great for them. Especially because these guys, they want to play basketball after college. This is a great opportunity to play on the big stage and show what you can do, because a lot of people are gonna be watching.”

The core-four seniors deserve this moment. They had known heartache and devastation following two previous one-and-done dances. Now, after beating North Carolina State, they want more.

“It’s been a mission ever since this season started,” Holloway said. “Our goal was to try to advance as far as we can in the NCAA Tournament. That was the goal from Day 1. And I think these guys are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Holloway was thrilled seeing the smiles on the faces of the seniors.

“It was so much pressure on this group to win this first game,” he said.

“Obviously getting the monkey off your back and have a chance to play a team like Kansas in Kansas, and being underdogs …

“I think this team loves being underdogs. I think we’re at our best when we’re underdogs.”

Holloway’s team, coached by Tommy Amaker, was a 10th seed when it upset Oregon 72-71 in Buffalo.

“We thought we should have been a little higher [seeded], we thrived on that,” Holloway recalled. “We were a team that nobody really wanted to play because we had some experience in the guard play, we had a good big guy [7-foot-1 freshman shot-blocker Samuel Dalembert]. It’s kinda like our team this year.”

Holloway was a senior, a penetrating 5-10 point guard out of St. Patrick High School in Elizabeth, N.J., playing in his first NCAA Tournament game. The ball was in his hands with 8.7 seconds left in OT, the Pirates trailing 71-70 following a pair of free throws by Fred Jones.

“We took the ball out,” Holloway recalled. “We had a play called ‘Quick’ that we ran. The play was for me to come down and try to get Darius [Lane] or Rimas [Kaukenas] a shot, but I took the ball coast to coast. They tried to double me. I dribbled outside the double team and went coast to coast.”

The layup, high off the glass, came with 1.9 seconds left. Holloway finished with 27 points.

“Every kid dreams of a moment like that,” Holloway said.

What followed against Temple was every kid’s nightmare.

“Sam Dalembert blocked a shot,” Holloway recalled. “I got the ball. It was a 3-on-2 fastbreak, and I went down the middle, and I stepped on one of the guys’ foot. And I went up and made the layup and actually came back down on the same ankle. It was probably one of the worst [left] ankle sprains that that doctor said he had ever seen. I ripped seven different ligaments. They took me right to the hospital right down the block to X-rays.”

After Holloway had been carried off the court, the Pirates, shooting over John Chaney’s matchup zone, refused to crumble against the second-seeded Owls.

“Ty Shine was hitting unbelievable shots, and when I got back, there were probably eight minutes left in the game. Maybe even a little bit less than that,” Holloway said.

He watched the rest of it from the end of the bench in a wheelchair.

“It was a bittersweet feeling for me,” Holloway said. “It was such an emotional high for me after hitting the game-winning shot, then to go down in the first five minutes of the second game … but I was happy for my teammates, I was happy for the university and I was happy for the community of Seton Hall.”

He tried to no avail to will himself back for the Sweet 16 matchup in Syracuse against Eddie Sutton’s veteran Oklahoma State outfit.

“I was getting 24-hour treatment hoping I could play in the game,” Holloway said. “So I was in hiding for that whole week leading up to it.”

He remembers a pep rally that sent the Pirates off to the Sweet 16. He was in a walking boot, on crutches.

“It was very tough for me to watch,” Holloway said.

Led by senior point guard Doug Gottlieb, Oklahoma State edged the Hall 68-66.

“They played really, really hard,” Gottlieb told The Post. “I’ll never know how good they would have been if they had Shaheen.”

Gottlieb, a FOX Sports analyst, is predicting a Seton Hall upset victory.

“I like the matchup,” he said. “If you post up on them, their power forward, you can score on them.”

Carrington will have to slow Kansas star Devonte’ Graham.

“We just gotta keep them out of transition,” Holloway said. “That’s where their bread and butter is. And we just gotta contain their runs.”

They have a Hall of a chance.

“I like that we got some experience,” Holloway said. “I like that we got senior leadership. Kansas is a great team, they got great guards and great tradition, but I think we match up well against them.”

Yes they KAN.