I want to believe in Bob Driscoll.

Honestly, I do.

I want to believe that he has done his due diligence, that he is being painstakingly thorough in the interviewing process, and that he will hire a highly qualified man to coach basketball at Providence College.

Which is why I’d like to believe the latest rumor du jour — that the much-traveled Larry Brown is in the mix — and find it hard to believe that Fran Fraschilla even got an interview, as he did in San Antonio, where Driscoll has been attending the Final Four.

Driscoll will be heading this weekend to the NCAA Frozen Four, in Denver, which would lead one to believe — and, certainly, Friars fans to hope — that he is negotiating, as we speak (or read, as the case may be) with the next coach of the Friars and will be announcing the hire today, tomorrow, or, at the latest, Thursday.

It’s understandable that PC fans would have liked the position to be filled yesterday. Or last week. Which it would have been, had former Friar Jim Larranaga accepted his alma mater’s generous contract offer.

It’s a bit surprising that the process has taken as long as it has, given that Driscoll and the Rev. Brian Shanley, PC’s athletically minded president, had to know early in February that they weren’t going to bring Tim Welsh back for the 2008-09 season.

You’d think — or, at least, I’d think — that once they pulled the trigger on Welsh, they’d already have had a relatively short list of candidates to interview, made arrangements to sit down with them, and then make a decision.

But as long as they get it right, it doesn’t matter how long the process takes. It may make it more difficult to find the “right” guy, but that, too, remains to be seen.

There seems no question that Fraschilla would be the “wrong” guy.

Considering that he hasn’t coached in six years, and that he was fired from his last two jobs, the only conceivable reason for even interviewing him would be in hopes of currying favor, of flattering his not-inconsiderable ego, so that, when next he talks about the Friars on ESPN, he will speak highly of the program.

There aren’t many people in basketball who will speak highly of Fraschilla.

He was fired at St. John’s amid rumors of an unseemly incident in the team’s locker room, and because he was openly shopping for another job. New Mexico let him go when, with players leaving the program in disturbing numbers, and the team’s grade-point average abysmally low, the Albuquerque Journal editorialized that it was time for the university to “acknowledge that things are terribly wrong in the men’s basketball program. And getting worse.”

It would be hard to imagine the Friars making a worse hire.

The only other candidates Driscoll is known to have interviewed are former Brown coach Craig Robinson, who yesterday was named coach at struggling Oregon State (0-18 in the Pac-12 this season) and Tim O’Shea, who was Al Skinner’s top assistant at URI and Boston College before becoming, in 2001, coach at Ohio U., where he has won 19 or more games in each of the last four seasons.

Robinson wanted a quick commitment from Driscoll and, when he didn’t get it, took the job at Oregon State, which already had been turned down by San Diego coach Billy Grier, and seen Randy Bennett (St. Mary’s) and Ron Hunter (IUPUI) withdraw their names from consideration.

Oregon State, like PC, hired a search firm to assist in hiring a coach.

It’s hard to believe that someone as well connected as, say, former PC athletics director and legendary coach Dave Gavitt — a Naismith Hall of Famer — would have needed a search firm to help him locate qualified candidates.

But Driscoll is a hockey guy, not a basketball guy. So, giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s give him credit for acknowledging that a search firm might uncover candidates whose interest in PC might not have been obvious.

Having said that, I’d have immediately fired any search firm that gave me Fraschilla’s name.

But, ultimately, it’s who Driscoll hires that counts.

I want to believe in Bob. Honestly, I do. It’s just that it’s getting harder by the day, now that Larranaga has turned him down, Robinson is off to the West Coast and guys like Fraschilla are getting interviews.

jdonalds@projo.com