Key runs on both sides of the halftime break and another late in regulation helped Providence hold off visiting cross-town foe Brown 86-79 on Tuesday night.
Jamier Jones and Jaylin Sellers each scored 16 points to lead the Friars (7-4), who have won three straight entering Big East play. Jason Edwards added 12 points, and Stefan Vaaks and Ryan Mela posted 10 each.
Vaaks and Edwards each dished out four assists. Sellers had three of Providence’s eight 3-pointers.
Brown (5-7) turned a 13-point deficit with 12:12 left into a one-possession game with 6:14 to go, but the hosts used a late surge to create a double-digit score again in the final minutes. Jones scored 12 of his points in the second half.
Landon Lewis led the Bears with 17 points and eight rebounds, while Luke Paragon (15 points) hit four of his five triples after halftime. Adrian Uchidiuno and David Rochester each added 12.
Mela scored the first five Providence points before a behind-the-back feed to Corey Floyd Jr. for a slam dunk that capped a 6-0 run and gave the Friars a 9-4 lead at the first timeout.
Brown hung tough despite a slow start (1-for-7, 5-for-18), using a mini 4-0 spurt midway through the first half to draw even on Rochester’s second-chance layup and a Paragon 3-pointer.
The Friars responded with a 5-0 run, including a Vaaks transition dunk. After a back-and-forth segment, Uchidiuno’s left-hand dunk highlighted the visitors’ 6-0 run to re-tie the score.
Providence led 42-37 at halftime with the help of a 7-0 spurt and an 11-4 extended run into the final minute. An Edwards triple began the latter segment. An Uchidiuno trey was the Bears’ lone field goal in the final 4:15.
After Mela and Paragon began the second half trading 3-pointers, the Friars built their first double-digit lead with 14:44 left as Brown shot just 2-of-11 through six-plus minutes.
A Cole Hargrove bucket sparked a 6-0 Friar run across nearly four minutes before two Jones dunks — including one off a Mela alley-oop feed — made it a 10-2 extended stretch.
But the Bears did not go away. A pair of 6-0 spurts within less than two minutes created a one-possession game with 7:30 to go.
Rochester scored five of the first eight Brown points across a combined 14-5 stretch before Paragon knocked down back-to-back triples, cutting the Bears’ deficit to four with 9:23 left.
After Providence found five straight points from Oswin Erhunmwunse, Paragon’s fourth second-half trey sparked another 6-0 run. A 5-0 burst from Sellers opened a 9-3 segment that helped the Friars seize control again.
Vaaks knocked down a three from the corner to push the Providence lead back to 10 with 2:48 left. A last-minute Jones dunk put an exclamation point on the win.
