The Friars’ Weyinmi Efejuku, left, and Jeff Xavier, center, along with DePaul’s Jeremiah Kelly, watch a DePaul shot rattle around the rim during the first half of last night’s Big East contest at The Dunk.

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The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

PROVIDENCE –– That’s two up and two down for Keno Davis and his Providence College Friars.

The Friars shook off some cold and sloppy offensive stretches by playing stingy defense all game long, and that was enough to deliver a second straight Big East home win as PC outlasted DePaul, 62-54, last night at The Dunk.

PC improves to 10-4 overall and 2-0 in the Big East for just the fourth time in the program’s history. DePaul falls to 0-2 in the conference and 8-7 overall.

The overriding positive development from this one is that the Friars won because of a gritty defensive effort. They limited the Blue Demons to 35-percent shooting and just 16 percent (3 of 19) from the 3-point line. Dar Tucker, a Polish sophomore scoring guard who came into the game averaging 20 points, was hawked at every turn and held to 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting. Will Walker led the Demons with 14 points.

Davis spent all night in a tight zone defense but also used a chaser at times on Tucker.

“He’s going to be in your scouting report. We weren’t going to leave him,” Davis said of Tucker. “If the other guys were going to beat us, that was okay. We knew he’d take a lot of shots. He has to score for them. We just had to make sure that the shots he did make were contested.”

The Friars were far from smooth on the offensive end. They shot 40 percent but were greatly helped by DePaul’s decision to sit in a zone defense for long stretches.

That allowed the Friars’ struggling 3-point shooters to line up some deep jumpers and they delivered, knocking down 9-of-25 tries. Weyinmi Efejuku hit four treys and led PC with 18 points. Sharaud Curry (13 points) and Jeff Xavier (10) added two threes apiece.

The key player for Providence was Geoff McDermott. After sleepwalking through a first half in which he took only three shots and grabbed one rebound in 16 minutes, the burly senior took over the game when it counted.

The Friars led from start to finish, but DePaul closed to within one, 44-43, with 10:14 to play. That’s when McDermott went to work, continually beating DePaul big man Mac Koshwal off the dribble. He canned an open 3-pointer to get a stalled offense moving, then knocked in a 15-footer. After McDermott broke free and somehow missed an open dunk, Curry hit a jumper. McDermott then fought his way to the foul line and made a free throw. After a wild runner by Tucker missed, Xavier drained an open 3-pointer and the Friars were back in command, 55-45.

“I started hitting some shots, so the guys kept feeding me the ball. It felt great,” said McDermott.

DePaul’s Mac Koshwal scored inside to cut the lead to 55-51 with 2:56 left, but PC’s defense stiffened from there as the Demons managed only one more basket the rest of the way.

DePaul came out of the gate very slowly, looking sluggish on defense and not showing much of a clue on how to attack the Friars’ zone defense. PC went up quickly, 9-2, and led, 15-6, after 3-pointers by Efejuku and Curry. The Blue Demons made just three of their first 12 shots as Tucker struggled to get going and Koshwal couldn’t shake loose inside the zone defense.

The Demons recovered after getting a nice lift off the bench from freshman Chris Faber but two straight lane drives from Curry and a wide-open 3-pointer from Xavier pushed the lead to a high of 26-14.

Walker canned two threes for DePaul to keep things close and DePaul closed to 32-28 late in the half.

The Friars scored the final basket of the half when Marshon Brooks found Randall Hanke for a dunk with three seconds remaining to give PC a 34-28 lead. DePaul got out of its zone defense for longer stretches of the second half and that energized the team a bit, but without Tucker the visitors simply couldn’t muster enough of an offense to overtake the Friars.

kmcnamar@projo.com