St. Joe’s 70

Kansas 67

When St. Joseph’s played Kansas last season, the Jayhawks applied a 40-point whipping to the Hawks. And the way last night’s Jimmy V Classic matchup started, it looked like a replay.

But in the end, St. Joe’s gave Kansas a lesson – a lesson in resilience in the first half, and execution in the second.

And at the final buzzer – after Micah Downs’ last-ditch 3-point try bounced off the rim, and St. Joseph’s David Lee sprinted toward the crimson-clad students who had turned the Garden into a satellite campus – it was the Hawks who earned a 70-67 victory, and a measure of redemption.

“It was bulletin-board stuff for us. I don’t want to say we owed them, but … they beat us in every aspect last year. It made us grow,” Lee said of that season-opening 91-51 loss.

Last night, the St. Anthony’s of Jersey City product had 13 points, seven assists and three steals as the Hawks (4-1) turned the tables on the Jayhawks.

St. Joe’s got 27 points from forward Chet Stachitas, who hit six 3-pointers to drop Kansas to 3-4 for the first time since 1971-72.

“It’s been rare that I’ve felt that good out there, where if I had an open look at the basket it felt like it was going in before I ever shot the ball,” said Stachitas, who was pretty much on the mark. He hit nine of 12 from the floor, six of seven from 3-point range, all career-highs. For him, the young Jayhawks had no answer.

Last year in Lawrence, then-No. 2 Kansas drilled St. Joe’s – and looked ready to run St. Joseph’s right out onto 33th Street last night.

The Hawks missed six of their first eight, while Kansas hit seven of nine, including all three 3s. And when Brandon Rush drilled a right-wing 3 to make it 17-4, this had the smell of a rout.

But the Jayhawks, with their top seven scorers all freshmen or sophomores, saw St. Joe’s victimize their youth by running them through screen after screen. They clogged the lane, confounded them with matchup and 1-2-2 zones, and Stachitas harassed Rush, who had 10 points in the first 5:55 and three after that.

St. Joe’s climbed back by shooting 57.1 percent in the second half – Stachitas had 17 – and they clamped down on defense in the pivotal end game. Mario Chalmers, who played on a sprained toe, put Kansas ahead 62-61 with a dunk at 6:18 left. The Jayhawks would not score again until his layup with :34.5 left.

The Hawks scored the next seven to make it 68-62 inside a minute, and held on.

“It was 91-51 only because [Kansas coach] Bill Self was a kind man,” said St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli. “It was not boys and against men: It was men against a fifth-grade team.

“We got what we deserved last year, and we got what we deserved [last night], too.”

Self said his team’s performance at the end of the first half was the difference.

“We lost that game in the final two minutes of the first half,” he said. “Instead of us having the momentum, we gave it to Saint Joseph’s.”

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The doubleheader at Madison Square Garden raises money for the V Foundation, which was started in the memory of Jim Valvano, the former coach at North Carolina State, and provides funding for cancer research.

“To have a chance to play on the big stage, in New York, on national television and against a storied program like Kansas, it was a special night for these kids,” Martelli said.