This wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t discussed and hadn’t even crossed Rod Strickland’s mind when he took the head-coaching job at Long Island University last summer.

Sure, his two sons, Tai and Terell, were still in college and had remaining eligibility. But they had their own careers and lives to live out. He didn’t even suggest they join him, not after he took the job late last June.

“I wanted to come in and give an opportunity to the young fellas already here,” the former Knicks point guard told The Post. “I didn’t want to rock the boat, to be honest.”

Then, over the past year, everything changed. LIU struggled mightily through a 3-26 campaign in Strickland’s first season as a college head coach, ranking 363rd out of 363 teams graded by KenPom.com.

Meanwhile, Terell, dealing with an assortment of injuries, appeared in just 13 games for James Madison. Tai’s season didn’t go as planned at Georgia Southern, and the Eagles finished seventh in the Sun Belt Conference.

They needed each other. Strickland needed his sons’ experience as veteran college basketball players who understood him. They needed their father’s guidance. It made sense on many different levels, particularly for Tai, who had just one year of eligibility remaining.

In late March, the two Strickland sons committed to transfer to LIU, in what their father hopes can be a seminal moment for his developing program and a memorable season for the family.

“We talk about it: The name on the back of the jersey kind of hurt them in this basketball thing just because [of me],” he said. “Now I get an opportunity to put them in a good position, empower them. They know they’ve got somebody in their corner. Probably for the first time they can look over at [their coach] and say, ‘I know what that is.’ To me, that’s the most important thing. It’s not like I’m bringing my sons here and they can’t play or they’re not good enough or whatever. They’re coming from a higher level. So I know what they’re capable of.”

Like the elder Strickland, his two sons are guards. The 6-foot Terell comes from James Madison, which moved from the Colonial to the Sun Belt this past season. The 6-2 Tai has bounced around, from Wisconsin to Temple to Georgia Southern, with which he averaged 7.2 points in 30 games last season.

The two brothers played together once, when Tai was a senior and Terell was a junior at St. Petersburg (Fla.) High School. That team reached the Florida state semifinals. But they have never played for their father before at any level.

“The same way he said he wants us to have somebody who has our back, I wanted him to have somebody who has his back,” Terell said. “Also, the team they had, I felt like I could’ve come in and helped a lot, especially for my pops. He’s back in the city. He has a great opportunity — we all have a great opportunity. It just made sense for us to come back and do this together.”

Said Tai: “I was kind of set [at Georgia Southern]. Then during the season, things went as they went. They struggled, we struggled. As Terell said, he got hurt. At the end of the season, you kind of sit back and reflect: Why not?”

How it will work out is, of course, uncertain. LIU hasn’t practiced yet. This is new territory for Rod, Tai and Terell. The three would frequently be on the phone after games, Rod offering insight into how they played and how they could improve, but the current situation is different. Their connection will be in real time.

While he never coached his sons before, Rod did train them when they were younger, and he was very tough on both, particularly Tai. After school, they would come to his practices when he worked at Memphis, Kentucky and South Florida, and the three would work out together, sometimes deep into the night. On occasion, Rod kicked Tai out of the gym. Both sons were stubborn, refusing to give an inch. It was like a tug of war, Tai recalled.

In Rod’s mind, he was helping his son by pointing out what he was doing wrong. He only knew one way to teach the game. Eventually, he came to understand he was too negative, always harping on shortcomings, rather than emphasizing positives.

“It got to the point where I realized with the older one, I had to shut up more,” Rod said. “I had to start saying less.”

But as hard as their father was on them, it didn’t change Tai’s and Terell’s passion for the game, Rod’s wife and their mother Cheryl said. They were always ready to work the next day and to learn from their dad. The Stricklands lived basketball, whether it was traveling to Rod’s games and practices or his sons’ games. The gym was their second home.

“We were an eat-in-the-car kind of family for a majority of their lives,” Cheryl joked.

Terell, a sports-management major, felt for his father last season. He played against LIU on Dec. 18, a 36-point James Madison victory. It didn’t stop him from talking trash during the easy win, in which he had eight points, eight assists and five steals. After hitting a 3-pointer, Terell stared down the LIU bench. James Madison pressed for much of the game, and the younger Strickland recalled telling the Sharks they were scared of handling the ball. Rod wasn’t made aware of that until after the contest.

“I would’ve told the players to knock him down,” Rod, 56, said.

But it’s that kind of bravado that the Stricklands will bring to LIU, an air of confidence that is needed. Rod insisted his sons won’t be treated any differently than his other players. They’re at LIU because they can help the Sharks win. They may not start. That’s up to them, he said. He plans to be hard on them, because he expects so much out of them. Tai is ready for it. He wouldn’t want it any other way. Terell echoed that sentiment.

“We’re going to come out and we’re going to go hard every time we’re on the court. It’s going to be 94-feet pick-up,” Terell, 21, said. “You’re going to have to work for every bucket. It’s going to be a fast-paced style. You’re going to have to keep with us the whole time.

“I know what I’m going to get out of Tai. Tai knows what he’s going to get out of me. There’s a reason I keep getting hurt. We go hard. That’s just how we play.”

When Tai, who is working towards his master’s degree in data analytics, and Terell decided to enter the transfer portal, their decisions had been made. Tai entered with “no contact.” Terell heard from a few schools, but made it clear he was headed to Brooklyn to play for his dad. The boys made their dad wait, though, holding off on making the commitment official even though Rod had already told his coaching staff. For once, they had the power. So Rod posted in the family text group chat one day in late March.

“You Strickland boys have 24 hours to commit officially or the offer is rescinded,” he wrote.

Said Rod: “They were taking too long for me. Guys on staff were asking me about it.”

On March 28, they made it social-media official.

“They were definitely going to make him sweat it out,” Cheryl remembered.

While Rod, Tai and Terell downplayed the sentimental part of the coming season, it is hard to ignore. Rod will be coaching his sons for the first time, and in the city where he made a name for himself as a high school star. They will be looking to help him rebound after a nightmarish first season and will do so in front of large gatherings of friends and family. That aspect will be new for the brothers. They grew up in Florida and have never lived in New York City before.

“My boys will feel that love for the first time because they’ve been out of the New York area,” Cheryl said. “It was only certain games they would see family come to. Now they’ll be front and center.”

There is a pressure element to this, though, as Rod mentioned in discussing his sons’ careers. There were unfair expectations placed on them at a young age because of what he accomplished. Tai admittedly didn’t always handle it well, trying to overcompensate at times to prove himself. Now they will be in their father’s hometown, with his last name on the back of their uniforms. But all three believe they are ready for the challenge, that it won’t be too much to handle.

“I think they’ve had to fight and fight to show who they are. To their credit, they’ve come out of it as great young men, great students and great basketball players,” Rod said. “I do believe it was a struggle. But I think it built character. They got through it. They’re more comfortable in their own skin. That’s the character part. Who cares [what people think]? We’ve had enough conversations about it. We’ve all kind of learned from each other. I think they understand we’re not worried about anybody else. That doesn’t matter. There’s so many opinions, so many things going on, it can drive you crazy.

“The bottom line is to go play your game, be who you are and you live with whatever that is. If you do that, you’re going to get the best out of yourself. Pressure is part of everyday life. That’s just what it is. If you’re in a sport, there’s pressure, there’s critics. We move past that.”