PROVIDENCE — Monday was a welcome day of rest for the Providence College Friars.

Keno Davis rested his hoarse voice, Marshon Brooks relaxed his sore ankle and the remainder of the players relished time to kick back and enjoy their three wins and World Vision Invitational title.

The off-day also sent the coaching staff to their video screens where they crunched the tape of all three wins and searched for ways to keep ahead of the college hoops’ posse. Next up is a trip to Tuscaloosa, Ala., and a Friday night date with the Crimson Tide.

The thing to remember about these Friars is that they are a work in progress, like any college team at this stage of the season. But more than others, the Friars need to keep progressing individually and collectively on a weekly basis. That’s what a young team does and right now the growth of the newcomers and how they mix with vets like Brooks and Sharaud Curry is priority number one for the coaching staff.

Here are a few items that jumped out at The Dunk over the weekend:

•Mixing and matching the Friars’ offensive skills will be a season-long process. With the exception of Brooks, the team lacks an inside-outside scorer that defenses need to be aware of at all times. Davis knows this and has crafted an attack that leans heavily on the 3-point shot. The question that needs to be asked is does this team have enough quality 3-point shooters to merit such freedom?

We’ll take our chances whenever Brooks and Curry fire way. Curry (22 percent won’t shoot as poorly from behind the line for much longer. The question is who else can be counted on. Brian McKenzie (7 of 18) is off to a nice start and we like frosh Duke Mondy’s stroke. After that? Pass the ball. Or drive it into the lane. Too many threes by players who have no business taking them kill an offense. So do threes after only two or three passes in a possession.

Those two issues, more than anything else, were the killers in the Friars’ scoring meltdown against Mercer when they managed one field goal in eight minutes.

“I don’t know if we executed poorly,” said Davis. “It felt like in an eight-minute stretch we were getting open looks and not knocking them down. What a team has to do is understand when you get those open looks can you also go to something else? Can we throw it into the post, can we drive?”

•That brings us to the big guys. It’s not clear if the Friars can throw it into the post and generate many productive shots. Greedy Peterson is the ultimate garbage player, seemingly always making something out of nothing. Bilal Dixon is an undersized (6-foot-8) center who needs a lot of polish on his post moves. After that, the Friars have junior Russ Permenter and frosh James Still, neither of whom owns a back-to-the-basket game. Permenter is a key. If he shows he can bang the offensive glass at all, he’ll become a critical piece. His stick-back versus Mercer was one of the game’s key plays.

“It’s got to be a different guy for us every game,” said Davis. “Russ came in and comes up with some big rebounds. We need more and more guys to come up with those effort plays.”

•This is an off-the-court issue but a troubling one nonetheless. It must have been a heck of a night Saturday up on Pembroke, Oakland and Eaton Streets. Whatever ensued near the PC campus, it prevented the so-called “Friar Faithful” student section from getting out of bed for Sunday afternoon’s game. PC says it sold over 1,000 student tickets but less than 100 showed for the best game of the weekend.

•Do not underestimate the difference between beating a good Mercer team by two and losing by a deuce. Remember Northeastern? Davis certainly does. That opening-night loss a season ago put a damper on PC’s season right out of the chute. It’s clearly a lot better to be 3-0 than 2-1 and nursing a painful loss to Mercer. Getting Brooks healthy is paramount, of course. He’ll be sore for a few days, but hopefully for PC he’ll get back to practice before the team leaves for Alabama Thursday.

“I’m big on confidence and to be able to go down to Alabama and try to win on their court at 3-0 means there is less pressure on us than if we were 2-1,” said Davis. “We’re taking our guys on the road early. It’s to give them a test against a big-name team. I don’t know much about them but, like us, they’ll be good at the end of the year. How good are they right now? We’ll find out. It’ll be fun to take that trip and see where we are, especially being 3-0.”

kmcnamar@projo.com