PC’s Jonathan Kale, center, battles URI’s Will Daniels, left, and Kahiem Seawright for a rebound during their game last December. Says columnist Bill Reynolds: It’s time to grow this old rivalry, this one that still endures with all of its passion and all of its history, by having the teams meet twice each season.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

Now is the time to be creative.

Now is the time to use some common sense.

Now is the time for Providence College and the University of Rhode Island to understand that the times have changed.

Now is the time for them to play each other twice a year — once at the Dunk and once at the Ryan Center.

Now is the time to do something to help college basketball in this state.

And I know they haven’t done this in 30 years now, and that the party line is that they are in two different leagues, and they play too many tough games already, and it’s not in their best interest to play another tough game, and blah, blah, blah.

Nonsense.

At the most obvious level, we don’t need the Friars playing any more joke games against Sacred Heart, and the Rams playing Hartford in the Ryan Center, two games that exist for no other reason than to provide wins and give season-ticket holders another game to go to.

At another obvious level, this annual game is always a treat, comes gift-wrapped in tradition and history, one of this state’s showcase games. So why not have two of them instead of one?

And at still another obvious level, it’s only common sense for those two schools to play twice in light of the difficult economic climate. Or why spend money traveling around the country in search of games when you can ride a bus between Providence and Kingston?

Three obvious reasons.

But it’s more important than that.

College basketball no longer has the stranglehold around here that it once did. There are reasons for this, of course. The incredible appeal of the Patriots, a season that usually goes deep into January. The incredible popularity of the Red Sox, which has become a year-round phenomenon. The fact that it’s been a decade since the Friars or the Rams went deep into the NCAA Tournament. The lack of a daily sports talk show around here that focuses on local college basketball. A local sports world that’s more and more pro-oriented all the time.

Add it all together, and it takes its toll, a chipping away of the popularity of college basketball around here, to the point that one day you wake up and it’s not quite the same and no one really knows why.

Which means that anything we can do to boost college basketball is a good thing. Everything we can do to give people games they can get excited about, care about, is a good thing. Every time we get people talking about college basketball is a good thing. Every time we can do something to grow the game around here is a good thing.

But guess what?

People aren’t going to talk about PC-Sacred Heart or URI-Hartford. That’s just the way it is. And it’s no secret that both schools play nonleague schedules full of too many games that not a lot of people care about. The Friars have Dartmouth. Sacred Heart. Jackson State. Bryant. And outside of tomorrow’s date with the Rams, they don’t have one nonleague home game that anyone cares about. Not one.

The Rams counter with Hartford, New Hampshire and Central Connecticut. Their home schedule wouldn’t be perked up with a game against the Friars?

Please.

Instead, we get too many games that are on the schedule just to fill it out, too many games that are little more than glorified scrimmages. The unfortunate thing is that this is happening at a time when prices for season tickets always seem to be going up, a time of seat licenses, all now set against a country in recession and a state in economic turmoil.

Ultimately, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So why not give fans a little present?

Why not tell PC fans that every year they will see the Rams in the Dunk. Why not tell URI fans that every year the Friars will make an appearance in the Ryan Center?

Wouldn’t that help everyone?

Certainly, it would help college basketball in Rhode Island.

And spare me the age-old argument that neither school benefits by this. That certainly has been the Friars’ behind-the-scenes argument, one based on the fact that they play in a very difficult league, one that takes care of their RPI needs, to the point that they really don’t need too many difficult non-Big East teams on their schedule.

For the last couple of decades now, the party line is that the PC-URI game is no longer as it once was, that the league games are what’s important, everything designed to minimize the importance of the game.

The only problem with that argument?

Fans don’t buy it.

They still care about this rivalry.

That’s a good thing.

Especially now.

So the idea should be to keep growing college basketball as much as possible — not the easiest thing to do nowadays when so many things seem to fly in the face of that.

So it’s time to get creative.

Time to stop taking fans for granted.

Time to give people more of what they want and less of what they don’t want.

Time to grow this old rivalry, this one that still endures with all of its passion, and all of its history, even with all of the attempts to minimize it.

Time to play two games a year instead of just one.

Time to go back to the future.

breynold@projo.com