PROVIDENCE — Ready or not, here come the new-look Friars.

Keno Davis is about to find out very quickly just how prepared his team is for the 2009-10 season. The Friars, who lost five of their top seven scorers off last season’s team, will play three games in the next three days as the host school in the inaugural World Vision Invitational. The action begins tonight with a doubleheader featuring Bucknell and Mercer at 5 p.m., and PC facing Bryant University at 7:30. The Friars will play Bucknell on Saturday and wrap up the weekend against Mercer on Sunday.

“One game in one day is a concern for me,” Davis said after practice Thursday. “We have a little more depth than last year, so we’ll play 10 or 11 guys over the weekend.”

The World Vision Invitational is not run in true tournament format. Instead, it is a round-robin schedule where no official “champion” is crowned. Davis says he enjoys early-season tournaments (the Friars will play in Cancun, Mexico, next November) but didn’t wish to hit the road like the Friars did last November, when they played three games in Anaheim, Calif. In order to host an event, PC decided to contract with a promoter, Basketball Travelers of Edmonds, Wash. The company runs several tournaments around the country and essentially handles all of the pre-tournament organizing duties, for a fee paid by PC. The company lined up the three other schools to come to Providence, negotiated guarantee fees, and had the event sanctioned by the NCAA.

“They are a turn-key operation,” said PC athletic director Bob Driscoll. “They do everything that’s needed to run the tournament, and we get to play three home games. It’s a good way for our younger players to see some good competition right away.”

Basketball Travelers pays Bryant, Bucknell and Mercer appearance fees that are commensurate with a guarantee they’d receive if they came to play Providence for one game. That rate is around $60,000 for several PC opponents this season. PC has sold all three doubleheaders on its season-ticket plan and keeps all the money from the gate.

“We already play Alabama, Rhode Island and George Washington on the road in the nonconference schedule, so we didn’t need many more road games,” said Davis. “That wouldn’t work for this team.”

In order to have an event sanctioned by the NCAA, promoters are required to donate some money to charity. Basketball Travelers has partnered with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization that fights poverty in the United States and abroad and also focuses on reducing malaria in 62 countries.

Providence’s three opponents this weekend all offer different challenges. Bryant begins its season with higher expectations than it did a year ago, when it won eight games in its first season as a Division I school. Thanks to some solid recruiting, the Bulldogs are bigger and more athletic than they were and also bring back three senior veterans in Chris Birrell, Cecil Gresham and Nick Pontes.

Bucknell finished 7-23 a year ago but is expected to be much improved. The Bison were chosen third in the Patriot League preseason poll and return three starters, including all-league forward Patrick Behan and redshirt senior Stephen Tyree. Dave Paulsen, a former coach at Division III power Williams College, is in his second season as the Bucknell coach.

Mercer is clearly the most dangerous of the three teams the Friars will face. The Bears, who hail from Macon, Ga., were picked to finish third in the America Sun Conference. They are led by one of the top guards in the country in 6-1 James Florence. He is a prodigious scorer who’s already poured home 1,737 points in his career. He averaged 20.8 points as a junior and goes way back with PC’s Sharaud Curry. The two both starred at Wheeler High in Marietta, Ga., and formed a potent backcourt that led the school to the 2005 Class 5A state title.

In an exhibition game win last week, Mercer defeated Georgia College and State University, 69-66. Florence scored 17 points and was helped by Jeff Smith, an impressive junior-college transfer. Smith scored 22 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in his Mercer debut.

kmcnamar@projo.com