Trey Davis needed a second chance.

When Davis stepped to the free throw line with three seconds remaining and the Massachusetts men’s basketball team trailing 51-50, UMass didn’t want the ball in anyone else’s hands but its veteran point guard.

All 2,423 in attendance at Mullins Center collectively held their breaths as the front end of Davis’ free throw rimmed out and came careening back down to the floor.

But then Davis, who’s an 85 percent free throw shooter on the season, redeemed himself and made the second to send the game to overtime all knotted at 51.

The start of overtime then belonged to Davis and the Minutemen (9-12, 2-7 Atlantic 10), as they ended a seven-game losing streak defeating Rhode Island 61-56.

Davis opened the overtime by stripping URI’s (12-10, 4-5 A-10) Four McGlynn, taking it coast-to-coast and finishing the uncontested layup.

“Once I got the steal and turned it into the layup, it cleared my mind. We went up two, so I was like, ‘Let’s go,”’ Davis said.

After a Zach Coleman steal on the ensuing possession, Davis orchestrated the fast break perfectly, hitting C.J. Anderson with a perfect no-look pass on a three-on-one fast break to give UMass a 55-51 lead that it would never give up.

“That was hard for me. It was like, ‘Dang, man. Really?’ Over and over and over,” Davis said about the losing streak. “Now we’ve gotten over that and we’re onto the next.”

But Davis still wasn’t finished.

With 1:38 remaining in overtime and two seconds left on the shot clock, Bergantino tipped a pass to Davis on the wing who drilled a deep two-point field goal that provided the dagger against the Rams.

Davis finished with 20 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals while playing a team-high 41 minutes.

“It was just a good play. We had a few others that I thought could’ve opened up the lead and we missed some. But that was a big play,” Minutemen coach Derek Kellogg said.

“Extra possessions in Atlantic 10 play I think is the difference between winning and losing. It was nice to see us making some of those coming down the stretch.”

With UMass leading 50-48 with 32 seconds remaining, Davis forced an off-balanced 3-pointer on the left wing that rimmed out falling in the hands of URI guard Christion Thompson. After a timeout, McGlynn drilled a 3-pointer to give the Rams a 51-50 lead.

Davis was then fouled with eight seconds remaining, but he missed the frontend of a 1-and-1 only to have the loose ball hit off of a URI player’s chest to give UMass another opportunity to inbound it from its baseline.

Davis was then fouled underneath the basket that lead to the free throw that sent the game to overtime.

“It feels good to obviously get a win. We’ve put ourselves in decent positions over the last couple of weeks and haven’t really capitalized, so for the team, it was nice to see them to continue to work hard and show good attitudes so maybe at some point we’d come away with the victory,” Kellogg said.

Although it was Davis’ offense in the extra period that led to the victory, after the game he said that his and the rest of the Minutemen’s focus will have to be on defense in order to prevent another extensive losing streak.

“Yeah, we played hard today and we played defense today. That’s going to be the word of the month, defense,” he said. “We are going to do that everyday and get better on that, capitalize that and go on this run.”

Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.