TORONTO — Stephen Curry chuckled at the sight of the suburban Toronto middle school team photo, as it instantly brought back the memory of that mustard.

“The nasty yellow jerseys,” the Warriors guard said, smiling.

Curry has fond yet fuzzy recollections of playing his eighth-grade season at Queensway Christian College, a school that no longer exists.

Those were simpler times for the reigning MVP, who will be the center of attention at Air Canada Centre when he defends his Three-Point Contest crown Saturday before making a third consecutive All-Star game start Sunday.

To his former coach and teammates, the way Curry single-handedly transformed a small, private school team into a juggernaut during the one year he lived in Toronto is unforgettable.

The 2001-02 Queensway Christian Saints went undefeated after Curry — the son of Toronto Raptor Dell Curry — saved the season with one legendary performance in a tournament final.

“For him, it was just another game,” said history teacher James Lackey, who coached the Saints. “For us, it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.”

‘An absolute killer’

Various recollections had Queensway trailing Hillcrest Junior Public School by six to eight points with less than two minutes remaining. Curry knew the other top player in the city played for the opposing team, which featured multiple players over 6 feet tall. And he didn’t like losing.

“Stephen just gets this look on his face,” forward Deven Mack recalled. “He looks like an absolute killer.”

Usually quiet in the timeout huddle, Curry spoke up after an exasperated Lackey told the ragtag team he was out of ideas and didn’t know what to do.

“Give me the ball,” the scrawny 13-year-old said, promising a win.

“No hint of a joke on his face,” forward Casey Field recalled.

“You heard him,” Lackey told the other Saints. “Any time you get your hands on the ball, pass to Steph.”

Curry hit a 3-pointer and then after stealing the ball hit another one from long range. A third straight 3-pointer for Curry made it nine of his team’s final 12 points, as he delivered the knockout blows in one of his early masterpiece games.

The final score was 54-48, with Curry finishing with 44 points and younger brother Seth Curry adding four points.

“Yours truly was the one who hit the other 3-pointer,” said Field, who still remembered he had the other six points in the box score. “My claim to fame.”

Queensway went on to finish the season 16-0 despite being completely unaccustomed to the role of basketball powerhouse. The court at the school had rubber flooring. Anyone who wanted to join the team could do so at the K-12 school with no more than 25 kids per class.

In one of the team’s first practices, Curry drove to the basket as a teammate watched with his hands down when Curry’s sudden behind-the-back pass hit him in the face and bloodied his nose.

“I won’t use his name because it’s an embarrassing story for him,” Field said.

The unassuming Curry was full of surprises for anyone who at first glance thought he would be the average middle schooler.

When Curry enrolled in the school midyear, Lackey ran down to the secretary’s office excited — only to find that the NBA player’s son stood about 5-foot-5.

Field saw Curry sitting alone against the schoolyard wall during recess as the others played pickup ball in the potholed parking lot. Wanting to be welcoming, Field asked if the new kid played the game too.

“He looks up and says, ‘Yeah, a little bit,’ ” Field recalled. “And now in hindsight, it’s a funny introduction.”

Said Curry: “I warmed up. Walking in to a different school in the middle of the school year was definitely very daunting, but the kids up there were awesome.”

Curry felt at home on the court. Too young to be allowed to play on the high school team, he was left to dominate on a team comprising seventh- and eighth-graders. Seth Curry, a sixth-grader who played on Curry’s team when tournaments allowed for it, gave the Saints a second future NBA player.

“We had the Splash Brothers before anybody else did,” Mack said. “The real Splash Brothers.”

The team had never won much of anything before the Currys came to town.

“Walking into tournaments against schools with triple the students and funding, knowing they’ve outperformed us in everything, every year, it’s hard to stay positive,” guard Harvey Brent wrote in an email. “Steph changed our attitudes. We began walking like kings.”

Early NBA aspirations

Curry was constantly in the gym working to improve his game despite regularly dazzling with 30- and 40-point performances. Lackey marveled about how one day while rebounding for him, Curry said he would eventually have to remake his shot so it wouldn’t get blocked as he got older.

Curry, who famously would make that change under the direction of his father once the family returned to Charlotte, North Carolina, made his plans clear in his Queensway yearbook entry.

“I would like to thank God this year for allowing me to move to a new country and live in a new environment,” Curry wrote. “It was a great change and I enjoyed it a lot.

“I look forward to going to the NBA when I get older … “

Glimpses of greatness came off the court as well, in Lackey’s eyes. He said he didn’t emphasize winning games so much as simply handing the ball back to the referee after a bad call and being respectful in the handshake line.

Curry’s parents, Dell and Sonya, were active in school activities. Sonya attended her son’s games and helped with the volleyball team he played on as well. Dell, who was in his final NBA season at age 37, volunteered to play in an exhibition game between students and staff members and was seen flipping burgers at a family barbecue at the school.

Curry still keeps in touch with the 44-year-old Lackey, who after Queensway closed its doors began coaching and teaching at Brampton Christian School in Caledon, Ontario. When Lackey attends Curry’s games in Toronto and Detroit, the boy who grew up to be MVP greets his children by name.

“In and of itself, it’s amazing to say he’s gone on to the MVP,” said Lackey, who takes no credit for the level Curry has reached. “That is just ridiculous. To go a step further and become one who is changing the game for the next five to six years, the face the NBA, it is certainly beyond anything any coach could ever dream of. That’s the dream. You hope the kids go on and are as successful as they can be.”

Mack went to the Warriors-Raptors game in Toronto in December and proudly held up a framed Queensway team photo.

“I’m almost kind of living vicariously through Stephen because we all knew that he was going to be good,” Mack said. “We didn’t know that he’d be this good. So to see him out here doing as well as he’s done, it’s almost like a dream come true for all of us.”

For more on the Warriors, see the Inside the Warriors blog at www.ibabuzz.com/warriors. Follow Diamond Leung on Twitter at twitter.com/diamond83.