Bob Driscoll has a problem.

And it's more than whether his hair is perfectly coiffed or his designer suit is properly pressed.

Providence College's dapper director of athletics has got to find the Friars a new basketball coach, and it's substance that matters in this search, not style.

This is Tim Welsh's 10th year at PC and, with the Friars struggling in the Big East at 4-7, having lost five of six heading into Tuesday's game at Pittsburgh, it's time for a change.

Welsh hasn't done a bad job at Providence. Really, he hasn't. It's just that the job he's done hasn't been good enough for a school competing in one of the best conferences in the country.

He has yet to win an NCAA tournament game, going 0-2, including a disappointing loss as a fifth seed to 12th-seeded Pacific in 2004, when the Friars collapsed down the stretch. Although they won 21 games that season, they lost their last four, and were one-and-done in both the conference and NCAA tourneys.

Worse, PC has won just one game in the Big East tournament under Welsh, and is in grave danger of not even getting to the Garden for the second time in three years.

Upcoming for the Friars are home games against conference powers Georgetown and Louisville, followed by road games at West Virginia -- which overcame a 12-point deficit to win by 12 in Providence two weeks ago -- and Cincinnati. Then UConn comes to Providence, intent on avenging an upset loss to the Friars in Hartford.

For those who'd point out that the Friars have been without their starting point guard, Sharaud Curry, because of injury; that Welsh twice has won 11 conference games, when no other PC coach ever has won more than 10, I point to the San Diego Chargers and the Louisiana State University.

The Chargers won 14 of 16 games in 2006, but that didn't stop San Diego G.M. and Cranston native A.J. Smith from firing coach Marty Schottenheimer after the Patriots beat the Chargers in the AFC semifinals in San Diego.

That was Schottenheimer's sixth straight playoff loss -- two in San Diego, four in Kansas City -- dating back to 1993, and Smith was convinced he wasn't the man to take the Chargers to the Super Bowl.

So he replaced him with Norv Turner, who won the AFC West title and two playoff games in his first season in San Diego before losing the AFC championship game at New England.

College basketball, unfortunately, has become all about the postseason. The regular season is played only to establish seeding for the Big Dance. Whether that's right or wrong, it's the reality. In the decade Welsh has been at Providence, there is nothing in his record to indicate he is the man to lead the Friars to NCAA tournament victories.

Just two years ago, John Brady coached LSU to the Final Four, upsetting number-one Duke in the regional semifinal. He took the Tigers to the Sweet 16 in 2000, won two Southeastern Conference championships and three SEC division titles.

But after missing the NCAA tourney last year, and with the Tigers off to a 1-6 start in conference play this season, LSU A.D. Skip Bertman fired Brady last week.

"The ultimate reason John was fired," Bertman said, "was [he] just didn't win enough basketball games since the Final Four."

As to why he fired his coach in midseason, with three years remaining on his contract, and only three weeks after he'd given him a vote of confidence -- which so often is the kiss of death for a coach -- Bertman said: "I felt if I waited until the end of the season, I'd be cheating the coach and cheating the kids. I decided to move [Brady's dismissal] to the halfway point of conference play, and sped it up one game because I felt it would leak out."

It's no secret that the Friar faithful are frustrated and fed up with Welsh. They have made their displeasure known at the games. While their conduct has hardly been commendable, it is understandable.

As for the idea that PC should have extended Welsh's contract another year before the start of this season, that's ludicrous. It would have been throwing good money after bad, serving only to increase his severance pay. Welsh had 10 years to prove himself.

There also are those who like to moan about how difficult it is for PC to compete in the Big East.

But should it really be appreciably harder to recruit a kid to Providence than to Milwaukee (Marquette) or Morgantown (West Virginia), or to schools such as Seton Hall, DePaul, Cincinnati, Rutgers or struggling St. John's?

UConn is an established national power, but there was a time when the Huskies paled in comparison to Providence, only surpassing the Friars when they hired a dynamic coach in Jim Calhoun, who brought the players who lifted Connecticut to prominence.

With the right coach, PC can, at the very least, compete consistently for one of the six or seven NCAA bids garnered annually by the Big East. And, if they get into the tournament every two, three, or four years -- perhaps win a game, or two, or three.

It's up to Driscoll to find that coach.

It's time to thank Welsh for a job, if not exactly well-done, than certainly respectably done, and bring in a coach who can do it better.