When you talk about Thanksgiving Eve and basketball on Staten Island, the knee-jerk reaction since seemingly FDR was in office has been Curtis and St. Peter’s.

You can’t blame local hoops fans — after all, the two North Shore schools have won more hardware than all other boys’ teams combined in the borough.

But there’s a burgeoning rivalry on the South Shore that checks off all the boxes, and maybe even a few that Warriors versus Eagles doesn’t.

For the better part of a decade, St. Joseph by-the-Sea and Monsignor Farrell have engaged in a contest of can-you-top-this within its halls and on its campuses. Every year, the two Catholic institutions add a variety of bells and whistles designed to win over the hearts and minds of prospective eighth-grade boys.

And in the athletic arena, the boys’ programs have traded salvos, especially on the baseball diamond and on the hardwood. The latest chapter in this sports series played out on Farrell’s Oakwood court Wednesday night, with Sea sweeping the JV (44-41) and varsity (48-44) twinbill with a pair of nail-biting decisions.

“The crowds are going at it, and the [players] all know each other. Plus, parents and family are here, and a lot of alumni,” said Sea’s Matt Stolfo, whose trey with 2:42 left put the Vikings up for good at 44-41, part of a game-high 23-point performance for the junior forward.

A standing-room-only crowd lined both levels of the gym, but that came as no surprise to those who’ve experienced this Thanksgiving Eve clash before.

“Honestly, you can’t get a better atmosphere for a game,” said Farrell athletic director Anthony Garofalo. “It’s a packed house with great fans. It’s electric. It’s what a rivalry is all about.”

“It’s the best atmosphere in New York City,” added Sea coach Mike Cortese, who had the proverbial lump in his throat when starters Paul Testaverde and Stolfo both went down with scary-looking twisted ankles within a minute of each other prior to the midway point of the first quarter (Stolfo returned later in the period, while Testaverde was hampered throughout and played sparingly).

“That seemed like bad karma, and it contributed to our early-game jitters,” said Cortese, whose Vikes trailed 20-13 with 1:31 left in the first half before finishing on a 5-0 run to close to within 20-18 at the break. “Keeping the deficit to within single digits was a key. This is the least amount of returning minutes [from the previous season] that I’ve ever had, but they showed poise and togetherness.”

None more than Stolfo, who battled back from the ankle sprain to join freshman teammate Nick Rebracca with three 3-pointers apiece.

“Right away after it happened, I knew I had to play through it, to push through it,” Stolfo said of the injury. “If it hurts, it hurts. Then, we got going from behind the arc and were real hard to stop.”

“Credit Sea for hitting those shots, but they were wide open on a lot of those. They had good, clean looks,” noted Lions head coach Mike Dunn, whose squad was paced by 10 points apiece from juniors Seth Clarke and Antonio Brittain. “We didn’t do a good job of getting out on their shooters and contesting those. We got to within two (46-44), but then Stolfo drove to the basket and scored. We needed a stop there; I was expecting a stop there.”

Dunn and the Lions will get a chance to turn the tables later in the season in Huguenot, “but we have to play about 20 games before that, and we have to get better by February. We need to do a better job executing.”

As for the rivalry: “[When we play Sea], it means something,” Dunn said. “It means something for the Catholic league and the [SIHSL] tournament. And it’s a very competitive environment. We’re vying for the same students, the same kids, from the same neighborhoods.”

“My definition of a rivalry is when you have games played the right way, which these two programs have; the schools have to be in close proximity; and there has to be a history between the two,” Cortese said. “We have all that, plus passionate fans.

“The first time we played Farrell on Thanksgiving Eve, we played it at Wagner College, but [Wagner] didn’t honor our agreement. It’s too bad, because I think they’re missing out on the best Island event in the calendar year.”

NOTES: Farrell handed out its State Federation Class A championship rings for being the first Island boys’ team last season to win a Federation basketball title. “We were respectful watching [the pre-game ceremony], but it fired us up a bit,” said Stolfo. … Sea’s JV win was incredibly dramatic, as Joe Moran grabbed an offensive rebound in the closing seconds of regulation, dribbled out to behind the arc in the left corner and let fly with a tying trey at the buzzer, forcing overtime at 35-all. The Vikings then jumped out to a 44-37 lead with 1:47 left in the extra session before the Lions nearly knotted it, only to have a 3-pointer go awry in the final seconds. Joe Guli (11 points) and Nick Lee (10) paced Sea.