NEW YORK — Prior to Friday’s Preseason NIT consolation game at Madison Square Garden, Providence sophomore Dwight Brewington made a bold prediction.

“The last thing he said before we went out on the court was, ‘We’re not going 0-2 down here,’ ” Providence coach Tim Welsh said.

Unfortunately for Michigan, Brewington was able to back up his words. The 6-foot-5 guard poured in 23 points and added seven boards, leading the Friars (4-1) to a 72-63 victory over the Wolverines (3-2).

The defeat came on the heels of Michigan’s demoralizing 61-60 overtime loss on Wednesday to No. 18 Arizona (3-2), capping a disappointing Thanksgiving weekend for the Wolverines. In both matchups, the Wolverines’ terrible free-throw shooting contributed to their downfall. Michigan shot just 52.9 percent from the line in the Arizona game and followed that performance with an even more dreadful 47.4 percent against Providence.

“We shot horrendously from the foul line,” Michigan coach Tommy Amaker said. “So I think any time you’re struggling to score, and then you get to the foul line and you can’t cash in, it’s very deflating.”

Despite the Wolverines’ poor performance from the charity stripe, they were in position to win on Friday until Providence exploded midway through the second half. With Michigan nursing a 46-42 lead, the Friars rattled off 14 unanswered points in less than three minutes to bury the Wolverines. During that stretch, Providence ran the floor with reckless abandon, turning Michigan’s turnovers and forced shots into points.

The Friars punctuated their rally in electrifying fashion. After giving Providence an eight-point lead with a tip-in off the offensive glass, Brewington picked off junior Daniel Horton’s pass. He then dribbled up the right sideline and tossed a perfect alley-oop to sophomore Gerald Brown, whose emphatic dunk brought the Garden crowd to its feet and gave the Friars a 56-46 lead.

“It’s nice to run,” Welsh said. “But if you run to the end line and then fall over the finish line, it’s no good. But we’ve got guys that can finish, and (Brown’s) one guy that can finish against any size player.”

After Amaker called a timeout, Horton tried to put the Wolverines back on track by drilling a 3-pointer. On Michigan’s very next possession, Horton dished to sophomore Brent Petway, whose tomahawk jam cut the Providence lead to 56-51.

But that’s as close as the Wolverines would come. Brewington scored seven points in the last three minutes and 15 seconds to help keep Michigan at bay.

The loss was surprising considering the relatively weak offensive performance of Providence’s 2004 All-American Ryan Gomes. Michigan freshman Ronald Coleman made the first start of his career and spent most of the night matched up with Gomes, holding the forward to 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting.

“If you had told me before the game that Ryan Gomes would score 11 points, we would have been fairly happy and pleased,” Amaker said. “But it shows you the kind of player (Gomes) is — he’s unselfish. It was a better afternoon for some of his teammates, and he played right to those guys.”

Michigan’s strong defensive effort against Gomes was offset by its lack of productivity in the backcourt. With junior Lester Abram sitting out with a shoulder injury, Horton shot just 4-of-15 from the floor, and Coleman connected on just one of his 11 shots. Even sophomore Dion Harris, who led Michigan with 17 points, wasn’t sharp — he made just one of five 3-pointers.

“Especially in the first half, we got a lot of shots that we wanted,” Horton said. “We just weren’t able to knock them down.”

On Wednesday, Michigan was just a point away from avoiding the consolation game altogether. The Wolverines jumped out to an early 21-11 lead over Arizona, but the Wildcats clawed back to set up a back-and-forth second half which included 12 lead changes.

With Arizona hanging onto a 55-53 lead, Harris’s layup sent the Wolverines to overtime. Michigan had a chance for the victory in the extra session, but Horton’s running underhand layup didn’t fall, and the Wildcats came away with the victory.

“I’m sure it wasn’t a very pretty game at times,” Amaker said. “But both teams were really doing everything they could to come up with a victory. Sometimes it’s tough when you have a game like that and the team has to come up on the short end of the scoreboard.”