NEWTON, Mass. — You can’t go home again?

Keno Davis couldn’t.

Not yesterday, anyway.

For these are where the roots are, this school, this campus, this little corner of the world.

This is where Davis spent his childhood, right here on a house on Commonwealth Ave., a jump shot away from the main gates of Boston College. This is where his father was the coach, with his doctorate and his bounce passes, with his pressure defenses and the perception back then that Dr. Tom Davis was one of the bright lights of the college basketball world.

This is where Keno Davis’ first memories are, where he would walk with his father down Commonwealth Ave. to Roberts Center, the little bandbox on the edge of the campus that used to be near where Conte Forum is today. Back when his favorite player was BC great John Bagley, and all the players were like older brothers.

This is where he first came of age with the game, watching his father’s teams, dreaming his own dreams, learning the game from the ground up. The education of a coach, even if he didn’t realize it at the time. Back there before anyone ever heard of Doug Flutie, never mind Boston College in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It is the place he still considers home, even though his father’s career would take the family to Stanford when Keno was 11, and then later to Iowa, where Keno went to high school and first got into coaching.

And it is where he brought his Providence College basketball team yesterday afternoon in this first season coaching the Friars, as if walking into his childhood, the past and the present on the same scorecard, swirling around in his head like out of control fast break.

“There are some incredible memories here,” he said. “Lots of things came back to me when I walked around.”

The Friars had gotten to BC on Friday, and Keno had driven by the house he used to live in. He hadn’t been back in a couple of decades.

“My time here is a big reason why I’m at PC,” he said. “Because I have such great memories of the area.”

It was the early ’80s when he moved away, and everything has changed, of course, including Boston College and college basketball. Still, the game has a way of creating links, and there were some there yesterday at Conte Forum. One was that a man who once babysat for Keno for a week still works at BC basketball games.

His name is Bob Bonanno, who was a BC student in the late ’70s, and was Dr. Tom Davis’ manager, a kid who used to run errands and do favors for him, in addition to his managerial duties. One was staying with Keno for a week when Davis and his wife were off traveling.

“Keno used to be around as a kid,” he said before the game, “but it’s going to be funny seeing him, because I haven’t seen him since then.”

It was not the only link yesterday.

PC’s Jonathan Kale and BC’s Rakim Sanders played together at St. Andrew’s in Barrington, and Sanders and PC’s Jeff Xavier both come from Pawtucket.

“Did you know him?” Xavier was asked.

“We grew up together,” Xavier said.

This was just one of the little subplots yesterday, in a game that both teams needed. Boston College, because they had lost to the Friars two years in a row. The Friars, because they need statement wins in this new season, need to start to prove that they can be more than they were a year ago. For Davis got some good news and some bad news when he got the PC job last April. The good news was he had a veteran team coming back.

The bad news?

He had a veteran team coming back.

It was one perceived to have underachieved, finishing at 15-16, a disappointing year that led to the firing of Tim Welsh and the PC job being available in the first place.

That has been what Davis stepped into, amidst great fanfare, as new coaches always arrive to the sound of trumpets, with the promise if new eras and bigger cheers. Always arrive with the hope that all it takes is a new face and all the old problems run out the door like some old basketball being kicked out the door into the rain.

The reality?

Some of the problems that led to last year’s 15-16 record have still been on display in this young season, one that began with being upset by Northeastern. The lack of a dominant inside game. On offense that lives and dies with the three. A team that has some talent, no question about it. A team that can tease you one minute, break your heart the next. Here we are staring at Christmas and this is what the Friars are: a tease.

A tease with flaws.

We saw that again yesterday.

They struggled to score in the first half, were as gone as a Thanksgiving turkey late in the game, only to stage a furious comeback and almost catch the Eagles, who began playing like a horse who is loafing to the finish only to get caught at the wire. Once again, they began playing with more passion and fire only when they were behind.

“That’s been the story of our team all year,” Davis said. “Sometimes it seems like we have to get down to get loose and really play.”

So in the end it was a bittersweet homecoming for Davis. It was a chance to once again walk in the middle of his childhood memories, this place he has great reverence for, only to get beat by the team he used to root for as a kid, the team that first introduced him to this game that’s become his life.

You can’t go home again?

Not yesterday.

Not for Keno Davis.

breynold@projo.com