Friars head coach Tim Welsh dejectedly walks off the court after Providence College lost to West Virginia, 58-53, in the first round of the Big East Tournament Wednesday at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

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The Providence Journal / John Freidah

PROVIDENCE — As Tim Welsh welcomed a reporter into his office yesterday afternoon, long-faced players and red-eyed assistant coaches quietly shuffled through the suite. The end is never pleasant.

Welsh’s 10 years as Providence College’s basketball coach came to a conclusion yesterday. Welsh met with athletic director Bob Driscoll at Alumni Hall before noon and after a short discussion, the school cut ties with the coach. PC owes Welsh one year on his contract, a debt that could be worth as much as $800,000. A search for a replacement begins immediately.

“It was professional,” Welsh said. “Listen, we all have jobs to do. Bob has a job and one of them was to make a decision in this situation. I respect whatever he says. That’s the way I was brought up. You respect the people you work for at a college. That’s their prerogative.

“This is a high-risk, high-reward occupation that we’re in. I knew that coming in. I didn’t just land here on Earth,” he said. “We talked and he said he was making a change.”

Driscoll went out of his way to praise Welsh, who he referred to as “classy.” But Welsh faced a tougher meeting a few hours later. It took a while to assemble his players, but the group eventually held what Welsh called an “emotional” meeting that clearly neither the staff nor the players hoped would ever occur. None of the PC players was made available to the media yesterday.

PC just wrapped up a 15-16 season that featured a two-game sweep of nationally ranked Connecticut, some bitterly close defeats, inconsistent effort and a long list of injuries. The loss in October of point guard Sharaud Curry, the team’s leading returning scorer, proved to be a hurdle the Friars could not overcome. Curry and five seniors-to-be are expected to return for the 2008-09 campaign, but that’s no guarantee of success in a league as deep as the Big East, in which at least seven teams will earn bids to the NCAA Tournament tonight.

“I just want these kids to be OK because I love and care about them a lot. Truly. They are great kids,” Welsh said. “They care about us and I don’t want them to feel like it’s their fault, which some of them do. I don’t want that to happen.”

As for his staff, Welsh clearly hopes to move on and coach again at the collegiate level right away. “There’s no question we’ll coach again. I feel like we have a good, national reputation. We won almost 18 games a year for 13 years. That’s not by luck. We’ll coach again, but I’ll always cherish my time here.”

In one moment, Welsh spoke about the “opportunity to coach these kids in their last year with a full deck and not have all the injuries,” yet in the next breath he conceded “that part is in the rear-view mirror. I’m looking ahead to our (staff’s) future.”

When Welsh came to PC from Iona College in 1998, the Friar program faced an instability crisis. Beginning in 1987 with Rick Pitino and continuing through Gordon Chiesa, Rick Barnes and Pete Gillen, the school had torn through four coaches in 12 years and failed to build a foundation for the future. PC hired Welsh hoping to solve that problem and still keep its coach after he enjoyed the type of success that led to Pitino (New York Knicks), Barnes (Clemson) and Gillen (Virginia) moving to higher-paying jobs.

Welsh did stay when overtures from such schools as Rutgers, Tennessee and St. John’s came his way, but when postseason success eluded him, the school and its fans grew weary. Welsh did as well, but he said, “No one wants to win as much as I do. People forget that. The fans are frustrated, the alumni are frustrated or the students are frustrated, but the number-one guy on that list is me. That part made this year frustrating.”

Welsh, 47, finished his career at PC with a 160-143 record with two NCAAs and three NIT teams. Neither NCAA squad got by the first round, and PC was a woeful 1-9 in the Big East Tournament over the last decade. Welsh said he’d heard from friends in the coaching business quickly yesterday, and even though he “loves” working here in Rhode Island and living in East Greenwich, he says he’s ready for a new chapter in his career.

“We didn’t have our leading returning scorer in each of the last two years and you can look back and say what-if, what-if, but it doesn’t do any good. Injuries happen,” Welsh said. “People in the basketball world realize that we weren’t 8-20 even with that. We were in the postseason a year ago and right on the bubble with a week to go (this season). We weren’t bottom feeders — that’s for sure.”

Welsh was asked just what it would take for the PC program to take that next step and be in the mix for an NCAA berth on a more regular basis. He smiled a bit, raised an eyebrow and insisted that while he thought the players were in place, perfect health and a lot of luck were needed on a tough Big East road.

“You saw a lot of people in the coaching world defending us recently. Well, that’s not because I like to have a steak and a glass of wine with them. People respect the job we’ve done here,” Welsh said. “It’s one of the tougher spots to move into that upper echelon, and I think people respect that. We’ve never complained about it, but it is. It was a challenge, but that’s made us better. We’re better coaches than when we got here.”

kmcnamar@projo.com