PROVIDENCE — If form follows, the Providence College Friars won’t beat the expected new No. 1 team in the country — the Pittsburgh Panthers — Tuesday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

If the same form continues, the Friars won’t beat 12th-ranked Villanova in their regular-season finale on March 5 in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Throughout the Big East schedule, the Friars have fought through a remarkably predictable, and frustrating, series of results. Providence has beaten the teams it’s supposed to beat and has lost to the teams that are rated higher. The lone exception was an upset of No. 15 Syracuse last month.

Throw out that win over the Orange and the Friars haven’t surprised anyone else. They certainly threw scares into both Marquette and Villanova, but couldn’t close the door in either game. An opportunity to beat back a surging Notre Dame team on Saturday was also lost with the Irish draining 13 3-pointers and running past the Friars, 103-84.

The problem is that if PC continues to follow this expected form, the Friars’ season will end in three weeks without an NCAA Tournament berth. Even a spot in the National Invitation Tournament is far from assured.

Asked about his teams’ inability to spring another major upset, especially on its home court, coach Keno Davis agreed that the season has played out unconventionally.

"It’s easy to go through your schedule and say these are the games you should win and these are the games you’re probably going to lose. It rarely works out that way," the first-year PC coach said. "It just for some reason has for us this year."

The Friars, even with a team loaded with experience, were picked 10th by the Big East coaches in the preseason. PC has played every team in the league except Pittsburgh and is 1-7 against the teams picked in the top nine and 7-0 versus teams pegged 11-to-16.

That adds up to 8-7. If PC loses to Pitt and Villanova and wins at Rutgers in its final three games, it would finish 9-9 (17-13 overall) and go to New York for the Big East Tournament far outside the NCAA tourney bubble.

Accepting this mediocrity isn’t easy for the thousands of frustrated PC fans who filed out of The Dunk Saturday afternoon cursing Davis and his players. Some may have looked at the league standings, saw Notre Dame scuffling with a 5-8 record and assumed the Friars were ready to pounce on another Big East bottom feeder. But that’s the same Irish team that was picked in the top 10 in the preseason polls and owns the star power that PC does not in the person of big man Luke Harangody, shooter Kyle McAlarney and several other key players.

"To come into this game and think we should win, well, Notre Dame is a top 20-25 team as far as talent. No doubt in my mind," Davis said after the loss.

To his credit, Davis has tipped his cap after all seven of PC’s league losses and pointed out that all of those teams were nationally ranked at some point of the season. That, of course, is life in the Big East. But Davis is also admitting that his team may lack the firepower to play with a Louisville, West Virginia or Villanova. "It’s difficult for us to be playing a team at the top level right now," he says.

Whether his players feel the same way is another matter. With five Friars set to accept their framed photos and flowers in Senior Night festivities on Tuesday, this is the last go-round for a group of players who badly want to play in the NCAAs. That goal has been slipping further out of reach as the weeks fall off the calendar.

The latest challenge may be the toughest of all for PC. Pittsburgh is the only team ranked in this week’s top four not to lose so the Panthers will rise to No. 1 for the second time this season when the new polls come out Monday. Pitt (25-2) is the type of team that clearly owns has more talent, up and down its lineup, than Providence. A Friar win would rival only Boston College’s shocking victory at North Carolina as the upset of the season in college basketball.

Is such an upset possible? In sports anything is supposedly possible. Then again, if form follows, the Friars don’t stand much of a chance.

kmcnamar@projo.com