BOSTON — Bill Coen is matter of fact when he speaks about his Northeastern basketball team.

“We’ve been up and down, not unlike so many other teams,” the Huskies’ third-year coach says.

His team, picked to be a title contender in the Colonial Athletic Association this season, has beaten Providence College and Holy Cross on the way to a 3-3 record. But it has lost to Boston University and at South Florida in its last two games. In the South Florida contest, the Huskies had only 13 points in the first half and were beaten badly.

For some coaches, the wild swings would bring some frustration. But anyone who knew Coen in the decade he worked at the University of Rhode Island as an assistant to Al Skinner will not be surprised to learn that Coen speaks without emotion when he assesses his team. He is calm and even-handed, which is the way he usually is.

So, which way does he expect his team to go tonight when it hosts URI at 7 at Matthews Arena?

“I wish I knew,” he said. “We’re a good basketball team but not a complete team. We have flaws that we’re going to have to overcome.”

Coen says he learned a long time ago to expect the unexpected in early-season play.

“You are playing teams that you don’t know and that don’t know you,” he said. “Just about everyone has ups and downs. Once you get into league play, where everyone knows you and knows the stuff you run, teams settle in. But right now we’re like everyone else. We’re trying to establish an identity.”

Coen feels his team will have to bring its “A” game if it hopes to knock off the Rams, 5-2, with both losses to Top 25 teams.

“We’ve jumped right into the fire. We’ve played two Big East teams (PC and South Florida) and a Big Ten team already,” Coen said. “I think we play the most complete team we’ve played yet tonight.”

Coen, who speaks highly of his time at URI, said his evaluation of this Rams team has nothing to do with his fondness for Rhody.

“Obviously, they have great perimeter play with Jimmy Baron. He’s playing as well as anybody,” Coen said. “They’re a very athletic team, a great transition team. They present length problems. They present quickness problems. Everybody’s missing something. I’m sure they’d like to have a dominant center. Short of that, they pretty much have everything else.”

The game offers a match between two of the best shooters around.

URI’s Baron enters fourth in the nation in 3-pointers made, with 28. Baron is shooting 56 percent from behind the arc. But last year, when URI pulled away late to beat the Huskies, 92-72, at the Ryan Center, Baron was not the guy putting on a show. That was Northeastern sharpshooter Matt Janning.

“He got 34 against us,” Rhody coach Jim Baron recalled. “He was 14-for-18. He’s a great shooter.”

Janning also had a big game when the Huskies beat Providence, 70-66, in the Friars’ season-opener this year. He had 24 in that one. The problem for URI tonight, Baron says, is that Northeastern has a good inside game, too, which makes it difficult to concentrate too much on Janning. The Huskies were picked second in the Colonial Athletic Association preseason poll to Virginia Commonwealth. URI and VCU had a great game 11 days ago, won by Rhody, 92-86.

Tonight’s game is the second part of a home-and-home. The teams have played often, and even though URI has dominated the series — it has beaten the Huskies 10 times in a row — Coen said the schools are talking about playing again next year.

“It’s a good game for the fans,” he said. “It’s a tough game for me personally because I have so many friends at URI, so many good people that I’m still in touch with and consider good friends.”

pkenyon@projo.com