Sports

Florida State knocks off St. Joe’s in Coaches vs. Cancer Classic final

Florida State didn’t care that St. Joseph’s had just upset the No.20 team in the nation or that the Hawks were getting their leading scorer back from suspension.

All that mattered was winning the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, which the Seminoles did on Saturday night at the Barclays Center, beating the Hawks 73-66.

“We really didn’t make any adjustments,” Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton said. “We try to have a system offensively that relates to who we are and what we do. We have a defensive system that we can make the necessary adjustments no matter who we play.”

St. Joe’s opened the second half on a 10-2 run, turning a four-point deficit into a four-point lead and forcing Hamilton to call a timeout to calm his team down with 16:35 remaining.

“I challenged the guys to do a much better job defending and rebounding,” Hamilton said. “Sometimes you have to be a little more aggressive and make sure they understood that we needed to step it up a notch.

Hamilton’s timeout worked as Florida State immediately rebounded and went on a 16-5 run, which was highlighted by an emphatic reverse alley-oop dunk from Terrance Shannon (15 points).

The athletic Seminoles provided the crowd with a few jaw-dropping moments in the game, including several forceful dunks from Okaro White and Shannon.

“Terrance loves bringing energy off the bench,” Hamilton said. “He’s very capable, I’m not surprised at what he’s done at all.”

White, who led Florida State in scoring in the semi-final round against BYU, finished the game with 16 points to lead the Seminoles. Michael Snaer (14 points), finished as the tournament’s MVP.

“The contribution Michael is making doesn’t necessarily show up in the statistical column,” Hamilton said. “He’s a guy who wants it so bad. He’s a winner.”

St. Joe’s got an offensive boost with the return of last year’s leading scorer, Carl Jones, who was suspended for three games after violating an unspecified policy in the university’s code of conduct.

“I thought he stood around too much and instead of being hard to guard, he became easy to guard,” Hawks head coach Phil Martelli said. “He had a number of conversations [before the game]…he’s not playing four games, he’s just playing one, and like all of us it was not successfully.”

Jones finished with 13 points.

The Hawks held a slight edge in rebounding with forward Ronald Roberts grabbing 11, including seven offensive boards.

“I think it’s a remarkable achievement to get seven offensive rebounds against that front line,” Martelli said. “But there’s not going to be any head holding high on the bus home. We lost. That’s how [Roberts] would approach it.”

As a team, the Hawks shot just 4-of-21 from 3pt range, with forward C.J. Aiken missing all five of his attempts.

The Hawks were coming off of a 79-70 upset overtime win against No. 20 Notre Dame where all five starters finished with double digits in scoring and over 40 minutes of play.

“I could give you the nonsense,” Martelli said. “[Fatigue] is what happens, but I don’t believe it. You get 30 chances where you have to empty your tank, they didn’t do that tonight. There was no pop, no sizzle.”

asulla-heffinger@nypost.com