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Enough of his players being arrested.

Enough of his abusive behavior toward administrators, officials, players, opposing coaches and the media.

Enough of the embarrassment and dishonor he brought to the Seton Hall program.

Enough was enough.

"I met with Bobby Gonzalez [on Wednesday] and in a very brief meeting informed him that he was no longer the men's basketball coach," Monsignor Robert Sheeran, the president of Seton Hall, said during a conference call with reporters.

"The gist of it was he had lost my confidence as president in his ability to coach and lead. The decision is mine, and I make that in the best interests of Seton Hall."

Monsignor Sheeran said Gonzalez, who compiled a 66-59 record over four years and is known for his fiery and combative personality, took the news relatively well during a noon meeting Wednesday.

"It was very brief and I thought he was reasonable and maybe calmer than he is at some other times," Monsignor Sheeran said.

Gonzalez did not return a text message seeking comment.

The decision to remove Gonzalez came in the hours after the team's lopsided loss Tuesday night to Texas Tech in the NIT and in the wake of a former player getting arrested earlier that afternoon.

Robert "Stix" Mitchell, who was kicked off the team Sunday by Gonzalez, was arrested in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday and charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary and possession of a weapon, according to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office.

Mitchell and another person were accused of breaking into a South Orange, N.J., home, duct-taping eight people and stealing cash and personal items. The first-degree kidnapping and robbery charges carry 10-20 years each. Mitchell was being held on $650,000 bail. The police did not identify the other person.

Pat Hobbs, the Dean of the Seton Hall Law School, told The New York Times that the school was not aware of the Mitchell arrest when it decided to fire Gonzalez.

Mitchell, a transfer from Duquesne, was booted from the team two days before the NIT after he criticized Gonzalez's substitution patterns in the Bergen Record during last week's Big East Tournament. Mitchell, a Brooklyn native, has a year of eligibility remaining, but Gonzalez ended his career early, saying he didn't "want any malcontent or cancerous type stuff."

The Mitchell arrest was the second for the Seton Hall program this year.

Junior guard Keon Lawrence was suspended on Nov. 9 following his involvement in a wrong-way car crash on the Garden State Parkway. Lawrence, 22, was reinstated Dec. 19., and subsequently charged with auto-by-assault and driving with a suspended license.

Seton Hall's season ended in bizarre fashion Tuesday with an 87-69 loss to Texas Tech that featured a premeditated below-the-belt punch by sophomore forward Herb Pope, who was given a flagrant foul and ejected in the first half.

"Man, I never got someone even knee me that hard in a practice by accident. He just took a swing," said Texas Tech's Darko Cohadarevic, who doubled over in pain in front of the Seton Hall bench after getting hit. "I just couldn't breathe for a second."

Later in the game, after Gonzalez received his seventh technical foul of the season, chants of "Fire Bob-by" rose from the student section.

"Obviously everyone who saw the game [Tuesday] night saw the crystallization of everything that was wrong with the coaching and leadership," Monsignor Sheeran said.

Despite the black marks on the program, sophomore point guard Jordan Theodore said several players still "love" and support Gonzalez.

"We probably didn't have the greatest season," he said. "We had a lot of hype coming into the season but we did try our best. We still got 19 wins. Coach did a great job this season with us and we're sad to see him go. A lot of us loved him and loved playing for him. I'll always love coach. He taught me a lot in my two years here. From my freshman year to this year, I learned a lot."

While Theodore came from powerhouse Paterson Catholic, Gonzalez failed to build lasting bonds with St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley and St. Benedict's coach Dan Hurley, the two most powerful high-school coaches in the state. Dan Hurley publicly criticized Gonzalez this season after the coach called out point guard Eugene Harvey, a St. Benedict's graduate, during a conference call, attributing several losses to Harvey's penchant for turnovers.

There will be calls in some areas for Seton Hall to now hire the Hurleys as a package deal, but sources said the school would have to make the elder Hurley "an offer he couldn't refuse."

Translation: They have to make him feel wanted and offer him the job with the prospect of Dan serving as an assistant.

Without strong ties to the Jersey powerhouse schools, Gonzalez recruited transfers and players from lesser academic schools.

Lawrence, Mitchell and Pope were all transfers, and Lawrence and Pope, especially, arrived with troubled backgrounds.

A recent New York Times article painted a highly unflattering portrait of Gonzalez and the high-risk, second-chance transfers he was bringing in, yet the administration refused to second-guess their acceptance.

"We look at each student's academic record individually," Seton Hall athletic director Joe Quinlan said.

"I think it's important to know that the University makes those admission decisions, not the basketball coach or the athletic department."

Villanova coach Jay Wright publicly defended Gonzalez's pursuit of so many transfers.

"I don't think he purposely went and got risky kids. I think he did what he thought was best for Seton Hall," Wright said.

Asked to comment generally on Gonzalez's firing, Georgetown coach John Thompson III said: "It's difficult, but that's the life we lead. Every job, every occupation, to a certain degree, is difficult.

Gonzalez and Quinlan repeatedly clashed and Gonzalez may have thought he had won a minor battle when reports surfaced that Quinlan was operating without a contract and might leave after this year.

Hobbs entered the picture this year in an advisory capacity, and soon decided he had seen enough.

He came to Monsignor Sheeran last week to discuss Gonzalez's possible ouster and the Monsignor said, "I need to sit on this."

By Wednesday, the Monsignor was ready to make a move.

"Our concerns continued to grow during the season and we continued to see a pattern of leadership there that was not representative of the university," Hobbs said. "The last week Monsignor asked me to refine my assessment a little more sharply."

Last fall Gonzalez agreed to a three-year contract extension through 2015, but reportedly never signed the paperwork.

Hobbs declined to say if the university would try and avoid paying Gonzalez based on just cause, saying only that the "financial exposure of the university did not increase" with the extension. The terms of the deal are not made public because Seton Hall is a private school.

The school said it planned to conduct a "national" search for a successor to Gonzalez, who replaced the fired Louis Orr in 2006 after Orr made the NCAA tournament.

Theodore said he would like to see one of the current assistants -- Scott Adubato, Dermon Player or Kevin Murphy -- get the job and Hobbs did not rule out hiring an assistant.

"I would really like to see one of the assistants get the head job," Theodore said. "A guy like Dermon Player, who's recruited all the players that [are] here we have a great relationship [with]. Coach Murphy and Coach Adubato, they've taught us a lot."

Other potential candidates include Hofstra coach Tom Pecora, who turned the job down the last time around; Robert Morris coach Mike Rice, whose team is in the NCAA tournament for the second straight year; Siena coach Fran McCaffery; Cornell coach Steve Donahue; and Iona coach Kevin Willard. Sources close to Rice and Willard said both would be interested.

Former Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo, who led the Pirates to the 1989 NCAA championship game, could be an outside shot if he doesn't take the Oregon job.

"From the outside looking in it looks like someone needs to go in there and really know what they're doing and really clean up a the program," one Division I coach said.

Pat Knight, son of legendary coach Bob Knight, told SNY.tv Tuesday after the Seton Hall game that interested ADs and presidents would have to be an "idiot" not to at least try to reach out to his father. Bob Knight, 69, is the all-time winningest coach in Division I basketball and the winner of three NCAA championships.

"I think the timing is especially critical and that's why this is happening now rather than later on because we don't want to lose anything in the transition," Quinlan said.

"It is essential for us to work quickly and efficiently and wisely in hiring somebody new so that we don't lose a year. That's very critical to the long-term success of this program as it would be with any program."

Enough was enough and now it's time to move on.