Providence College’s Jeff Xavier scoots ahead of Florida State’s Ben O’Donnell during the second half yesterday. Xavier has come a long way since growing up in Pawtucket’s Prospect Heights, writes columnist Bill Reynolds, Page C8.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

PROVIDENCE — Every season has swing games, ones that can send a basketball team toward its dreams or the scrapheap.

Yesterday at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, Providence College’s basketball fortunes took a very positive swing in the right direction. The Friars played their best overall game of the year and needed it to fight off an explosive group of Florida State Seminoles, 101-95, before 9,069 fans.

The win is a big one for a host of reasons for the Friars (8-3). First, PC hadn’t registered a major win since beating Boston College on Dec. 1. It wipes away the bad feelings from a poor effort Wednesday in a win over Sacred Heart and will also keep everyone smiling going into a four-day Christmas break.

“Confidence-wise, this is big,” said senior Charles Burch. “This was a tournament-type game for us. This is a game that can get us into the [NCAA] tournament a couple months from now. We needed to get it.”

It was not an easy one to get. The Seminoles (10-4) are stocked with good, veteran guards who helped torch the Friars a year ago, 92-62. They’ve already blown out defending national champion Florida and are clearly good enough to win plenty of games in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Both teams played very well offensively, with the Friars executing all day and placing five players in double figures.

Jeff Xavier led the way with 27 points and seven critical 3-pointers. Weyinmi Efejuku was outstanding as well as he drove the lane at will and popped a few treys to finish with 25 points. Randall Hanke continued to play well with 15 points and Geoff McDermott once again filled the stat sheet with 12 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds.

Jason Rich led the Seminoles with 27 points and Toney Douglas added 22. Those two guards and a few other FSU players put all sorts of pressure on the Friars, but PC answered the call and shot 57 percent for the game and 60 percent (12-of-20) from the 3-point line.

“I think our guys are going to keep getting better,” said PC coach Tim Welsh. “We’re a new team. We’re putting new pieces together and playing different this year. We’re without some pieces we thought we’d have but we’re not complaining. We have to adjust. Different guys have to step up and that’s what a mature team will do. When Jeff and Weyinmi play like that, we can play with a lot of people.”

Welsh made several key moves that led to the win. The most important was sitting a gimpy (Achilles’ heel) Dwain Williams and running the offense through McDermott and Efejuku. That relieved the defensive pressure FSU wanted to place on the ball and freed Efejuku to take his man to the rim as often as he could.

“I thought they did a very good job driving the ball,” said FSU coach Leonard Hamilton. “We didn’t contain the dribble.”

But Welsh’s best moves came in the last two days. The Friars played listless defense in a five-point win over Sacred Heart and while the defense was far from good yesterday, the fire in the players’ eyes was back.

“We talked about competing at a high level and fighting,” said Welsh. “I gave our guys an assignment the other night. Since school was over, I was the professor and I told the guys their assignment was to go home and watch Pittsburgh and Duke [Thursday on TV]. I knew those two teams would fight like it was a street fight and I knew this game would be like that today.”

The Friars played with that extra passion, with Xavier being the prime example. “I said ‘wake the hell up,’ in no uncertain terms,” said Welsh. “I asked if something was wrong with him.”

After falling behind, 11-3, Xavier gave PC an instant spark as he drained two quick treys. That began an 11-2 run that gave PC the lead. The Friars got a nice lift from the dunks of Greedy Peterson later in the half and took the lead for good with a 14-3 run late in the half that led to a 49-41 halftime edge.

FSU came out strong at the start of the second half and cut the lead to one point but two deep Xavier treys pushed the lead back to 68-60. Foul trouble for Hanke and McDermott slowed the Friars, but Burch and Brian McKenzie stepped in and helped keep the offense rolling even as FSU’s Douglas caught fire. PC was up 77-75 with 6:34 to go but an 11-2 run made it 88-77 two minutes later.

The Seminoles kept clawing and sliced the deficit to 96-91 with 29 seconds left but Xavier and McDermott both canned a pair of critical free throws to ice the game and give the Friars another big early-season win.PC

101

FLORIDA ST.

95

Next Game

Dec. 31

vs. St. Peter’s

2 p.m.

kmcnamar@projo.com