It was going to be a wonderful story, of course.

The Friars were going to hire former star Jim Larranaga to be their new basketball coach, and we already knew the story line. He was going to be the first former Friar to come back as the coach. He was going to be a name they could sell at the news conference, the guy who was the darling of the NCAA Tournament two years ago.

He was going to be a visible link to the storied past, one of the PC family coming back to try to take the Providence College basketball story to another act. He was going to be the new face of the Friars.

It was all set.

Roll out the old game tapes, dust off those black-and-white photographs from the old days back in Alumni Hall, and have one of those news conferences where the Friars anoint one of their own, the former star with a clipboard.

Until Larranaga pulled out yesterday, and the wonderful story went up in smoke.

Until reality came rushing in here in the form of a blind-side pick.

The reality that says the Friars couldn’t get the coach of George Mason to come here. Not Georgetown. George Mason. Not some glamour school that’s on national television more than a Friends rerun. George Mason, which plays in the Colonial Athletic Conference, which in the realpolitik of college basketball is just another word for obscurity.

Turned down by the coach of George Mason, and an alumnus, to boot.

That’s the perception, accurate or not.

Think about that for a second.

And by all accounts this wasn’t about money, the word being PC was in the million-dollar-a-year range. And, yes, Larranaga had a great deal at George Mason and obviously didn’t want to leave a place where he is all but revered. And, yes, that’s easy to understand, especially when he’s 58, an age where you start looking toward the end of the trail not the beginning.

But there is a disconnect between what people around here think of the PC job, and what people in basketball think of it. You can hear that in some of the names that get thrown around by some people in this coaching quest, everyone from Rick Pitino to Billy Donovan to any other heavyweight you can name, as if they are all dying to be the new PC coach.

They’re not.

Why not?

Because people in the game know how difficult this job is, know that it is easier to win big in other places than it is here.

Yesterday was just another example.

For I suspect that one of the reasons Larranaga backed out of this job was due to his uncertainty about whether he thought he could win here.

It’s a legitimate concern.

The perception in the basketball world is that the Friars are forever running uphill in a new, bigger Big East where Syracuse — Syracuse — has now gone two years without making the NCAA Tournament. The new Big East where UConn — UConn — has now gone three years without winning a Big East Tournament game.

The perception in the basketball world is that this is a program closer to the bottom of the Big East than it is to the top. The perception is that the kind of success everyone around here wants is no sure thing, regardless of who the next coach is.

And you can question all you want about whether Larranaga would have been a good hire or not. You can question whether someone 58 is the right age for this job. You can question whether this was going to be a good hire, or merely a safe hire, someone who was going to play well at the news conference, a wonderful story about coming back to his alma mater.

The bottom line is that Larranaga turned it down, regardless of the reason.

The bottom line is that Bob Driscoll and the Friars now go back to their list.

This gets complicated by the fact that there are now four high-profile jobs out there, LSU, Marquette, Oklahoma State, and California. They are higher-profile jobs than PC. Rice and Oregon State are also open. The point is that a few dominoes might have to fall before this gets resolved.

Which shouldn’t exactly cause a trail of tears. Having people turn down jobs is as omnipresent in college basketball as slam dunks and cheerleader pyramids. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter who turns this job down. The only thing that matters is who takes it.

Nor does it really matter how what resumé someone brings to the job. History tells us that. Joe Mullaney, the man who started it all, first came here from Norwich where he had only coached for a year. Dave Gavitt, now in the Hall of Fame, came here after two years at Dartmouth where he had a losing record.

Rick Barnes, now one of the highest-profile coaches in the country, came here after one year of being a head coach at George Mason. You never know.

Hopefully, PC can find someone who believes they can win here, someone who can prove the perceptions wrong.

And, yes, it would have been a wonderful story, the former Friar coming back to coach his alma mater. The former Friar coming back to resurrect the glory days, coming back to try and give this school another great chapter in its long-running basketball story, the prodigal son with a clipboard.

But it’s not about winning the news conference.

It’s about changing the perception.

A difficult job, regardless of who ends up getting it.

breynold@projo.com