PROVIDENCE — Mission accomplished.

Protecting your home court is mandatory in a competitive league like the Big East, and the Friars improved to a perfect 2-0 at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center with last night’s 62-54 win over DePaul. The victory came three days after a blowout win over St. John’s.

Now, the toughest part of life in the Big East begins when the Friars take to the road. As Notre Dame learned yesterday with its loss at St. John’s, posting road wins can be very difficult. The Friars certainly know the feeling. They were 3-7 on the road in Big East play a year ago, winning only at DePaul and Connecticut and Cincinnati.

“We’ve been through enough road games in our career that we know what to expect,” said senior guard Weyinmi Efejuku. “Hopefully, our experience can help.”

First-year coach Keno Davis knows that road games offer a different test, but he feels the Friars bought a bit of comfort space by sitting atop the league with a 2-0 record.

“I think we can go into this road trip against Cincinnati and Georgetown and feel that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain and just see how hard we can play,” he said.

The more, the merrier

PC’s Davis has stressed getting top prospective recruits to the The Dunk to watch his team play and the Friar staff enjoyed their biggest night yet last night.

Thanks to the hard work of the assistant coaching staff, the Friars welcomed four underclassmen to the game. They include two of the premier juniors in Massachusetts, a sophomore guard and perhaps the top freshman in New England. Pat Skerry, the assistant coach who came to PC from URI, has been recruiting all of those players for more than a year.

The juniors were Gerald Coleman, a guard from Boston who is enrolled at Tilton (NH) Academy, and Evan Smotrycz, a 6-foot-8 forward from Reading, Mass., who is prepping at the New Hampton School. The sophomore is Nadir Tharpe, a Worcester native who is at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. The the freshman is 6-8 Nerlins Noel of Everett (Mass.) High, who could be a national-level recruit as well.

Many of the same players spent time at the UConn-Georgetown game earlier this week. The two juniors PC is devoting a lot of time to are Coleman and Carson Desrosiers, a 6-10 forward from Lawrence, Mass., who was supposed to come last night but was ill. Coleman has starred for the BABC club team in Boston and has told scouts he likes PC, UConn and Louisville. Desrosiers is also major talent who enjoyed a big summer on the AAU circuit and is hearing from PC, Syracuse, BC, URI and many other schools.

Job well done

The Friars came into the game with a clear-cut defensive goal: stopping Dar Tucker and Mac Koshwal. The pair deserve equal billing since they’ve combined for 34.8 points and 17.1 rebounds per game. Both players have enjoyed some huge games. Koshwal pulled down 22 rebounds against Creighton and had 19 points and 13 rebounds against Alcorn State. Tucker, who came into the game third in the Big East in scoring at 20.1 points a game, torched Creighton for 32 points, then had 24 in a loss to Notre Dame.

Last night, the pair enjoyed mixed success. Tucker is a very strong, active player who makes things happen. He finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, but the Friars did a good job bottling him up on 4-of-17 shooting. Koshwal struggled to catch the ball inside PC’s zone defense. He was just 1-of-3 in the first half and finished with just three field goals and seven points.

In good company

Geoff McDermott bounced back from a slow first half to finish with 13 points and 10 rebounds, his 26th double-double of his career. McDermott now has 893 career rebounds, which places him fourth among all active collegiate players for career boards. Washington’s Jon Brockman leads with 1,004. North Carolina All-American Tyler Hansbrough has 1,002 and St. Mary’s forward Diamon Simpson has 907.

kmcnamar@projo.com