St. John’s Tomas Jasiulionis, left, beats PC’s Randall Hanke to a rebound Wednesday night.

The Journal / Glenn Osmundson

PROVIDENCE — Even as Keno Davis prepares his Providence College basketball team for its second Big East game, the first-year coach has an eye on the future, too.

Since the beginning of the season, two of Davis’ most promising frontcourt players have sat together near the end of the Friars’ bench. And that’s where they’ll stay.

Davis has decided to sit out both Jamine “Greedy” Peterson and Bilal Dixon for the rest of the season. Both are eligible to be redshirted and not lose a season of eligibility. Peterson, a sophomore from Brooklyn, N.Y., will have three seasons left at PC. Dixon, a freshman from Jersey City, N.J., will retain all four.

“That’s the plan and it has been for a while,” said Davis. “It would have to be something extreme for us to take a redshirt off now with the Big East [here].”

When the Friars take on DePaul tonight at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, Davis will have nine scholarship players at his disposal. He uses eight liberally, shuttling them in and out of the lineup in twos and threes to the point where no one averages more than 28 minutes a game. The ninth player, forward Alex Kellogg, is recovering from a knee injury, and Davis plans on dishing more minutes his way, too.

Many coaches would panic with such a short bench. A year ago, PC coach Tim Welsh used six players for 20 or more minutes in Big East games. He also used the other six players on his roster for seven minutes or more. Peterson, a high-jumping 6-foot-6 forward who may be PC’s best frontcourt athlete, saw 10.5 minutes a game and averaged 4.7 points with 2.9 rebounds. Those are nearly identical numbers to those posted by Jonathan Kale, who is PC’s starting center this season.

Davis insists he has more than enough players. Obviously a major injury could change that spin, but he feels that the versatility shown by several players in the rotation can cover up for foul trouble or an isolated injury.

“My team last year [at Drake] — I had four guys playing, like, 35 minutes a game, so I had an eight-man rotation,” said Davis. “I think what helps us with nine guys is Marshon Brooks can slide over and play forward. And Weyinmi [Efejuku] can play the two, and Brian McKenzie can play the one. They can play more minutes than they’re playing, all of them. So if we have a guy [get] into foul trouble or we have an injury, we’ll be down to eight and we’ve been playing with eight all season.”

Of course, it’s debatable whether the eight are Davis’ best eight. Peterson’s live body is not duplicated in PC’s current frontcourt lineup that features Kellogg, Kale, Geoff McDermott and Randall Hanke. And Dixon is a strong, bouncy 6-8 player who uses his 230 pounds well. Davis and his staff see all the players on a daily basis and while they’ve debated among themselves just what to do with Peterson and Dixon, the coach feels that redshirting is the best way to proceed both for this season and the program’s future.

“I wouldn’t redshirt them if I didn’t think they’d be very good players for us,” Davis said. “There’s not much difference in those two players and the nine that we’re playing with. There’s very little difference, in fact.”

Peterson will work this season on his ball skills, developing a better feel for the game and his currently nonexistent jump shot. Dixon must also expand his game and will be important in practices, inasmuch as he always stands in as the opponents’ top big man.

“That year, if they use it wisely, can really help them,” Davis said. “When they come back for their fifth year, it can pay off. You think about guys all the time. “Hey, what if he had another year?’ You go back to their freshman year and they only play six minute or four minutes. If they had that extra year at the end, how good would they be as players?”

The Friars are hoping to build on the momentum they found in a 21-point win over St. John’s in tonight’s matchup against DePaul. Davis says he’s pleased with his team’s improvement, so much that it’s catching him by surprise.

“We’re improving as a team,” Davis said after the St. John’s win. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re so much of a better team than when the season opened against Northeastern. It’s dramatic. I didn’t think we could become this good this quick. That’s why I always said we wanted to be playing our best basketball by the time the Big East games began.”Tonight

PC vs. DePaul

at 7

kmcnamar@projo.com