PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Head coach Geno Ford believes a challenging nonconference schedule will prepare the Stony Brook men's basketball team for looming America East play.

So for the second time this season, Ford took his squad to a Big East's program's homecourt.

Stony Brook fell on Saturday night at Providence, 82-78. But Ford again could be proud of the Seawolves' resolve.

Trailing by 10 points at intermission, Stony Brook opened the second half on an 11-0 run, capped by Makale Foreman's straightaway three-pointer from beyond NBA range. The resulting 35-34 advantage marked Stony Brook's first lead since a layup by Jeff Otchere in the game's first minute opened the scoring.

However, Providence (6-5) answered Stony Brook's early second-half eruption with a 12-0 run of its own. The Friars, the Big East leader in steals, also utilized a relentless press to keep the Seawolves at arm's length.

Stony Brook closed to within 60-56 on a jumper from Foreman with 6:03 remaining. And the Seawolves did get the game within one possession at 74-71 on a three-pointer from Mouhamadou Gueye with 41 seconds to go in the defeat.

"They were excellent and deserved to win," Ford said about the Friars, who had 10 steals, helping lead to Stony Brook's uncharacteristic 20 turnovers. "I thought we did enough to hang in. A bad start hurt us, but it was going to be a tall task. They play like that, they're not going to lose to too many people."

Reigning America East Player of the Week Elijah Olaniyi led the Seawolves with a game-high 25 points and also pulled down a team-high nine rebounds, narrowly falling shy of the second double-double by a Stony Brook player this season. Miles Latimer followed with 13 points, while Andrew Garcia had 12 and Foreman had 10.

Stony Brook (7-5) had trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half.

Like in Tuesday's game at Hofstra, the home team hurt Stony Brook from behind the arc. Providence drained six three-pointers in the first half and 12 for the game. Hofstra also had drained a dozen treys to account for more than half of its scoring in Hempstead earlier in the week in a game in which Garcia had a double-double for the Seawolves.

Now midday through a stretch of four consecutive road games, the Seawolves next travel to No. 9 Virginia for a 6:30 p.m. tipoff on Wednesday.

Stony Brook also played at then-No. 12 Seton Hall from the Big East on Nov. 9.

"Our schedule has been really difficult," Ford said. "If you were to go through it, we got beat at Delaware, who played toe to toe with Villanova today. We lost to Hofstra, who is picked to win the CAA — defending champs, four seniors. We got beat by Providence, a team that will be in the NCAA Tournament. We got beat at Seton Hall, a top-25 team. So we don't have, necessarily, bad loses. Yale is the other one [loss], and they've got an excellent team.

"We wanted to be challenged, because the bottom line is, for us to win our league, Vermont can play at the level of a lot of the high-major teams we've played nonconference. They're a heavy favorite to win our league. We've got to find a way to beat them. So we wanted to put ourselves in as many of these situations as we could where we would have to battle and be challenged."

CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS WITH A HOOPS DOUBLEHEADER ON DEC. 29 AS THE STONY BROOK MEN HOST NORFOLK STATE AT NOON AND THE WOMEN HOST BUCKNELL AT 2 P.M. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS.