The college basketball coaching carousel took an unexpected spin today when Tennessee hired Missouri State coach Cuonzo Martin. No outlets reported this was a possibility and it certainly came as a shock. The Volunteers, of course, fired Bruce Pearl a few days ago after the NCAA has said he violated rules and lied to NCAA officials multiple times in Knoxville.

Tennessee fans are skeptical. Martin never took Missouri State to the NCAA Tournament, though they did have the best regular season record in the Missouri Valley Conference this year. Pearl, despite his lack of a moral compass, was still popular in the state. Tennessee basketball has had a great run the last few years.

I have listened to several interviews with Martin in the past couple months and he seems like a tremendous coach and person. He is a Purdue graduate. He is from East St. Louis and is a cancer survivor. He is a fighter.

He is a winner.

Tennessee need not worry. He may not have a thick resume, but sometimes you just know. I'm not going to try to top this tremendous column about Martin from Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star.

Steven Pearl, Bruce’s son, was a senior forward on his dad’s team last season. After Martin was hired today, the younger Pearl tweeted: “All I can do is laugh and say good luck sir.”

I wish I could laugh myself, but this is too ridiculous. Pearl blew up the Tennessee program with his errors and his son has the gall to laugh when they hire someone capable of cleaning up the mess. I know a son is loyal to a father, but come on.

Cuonzo Martin will clean up this mess, much like Mike Anderson did at Mizzou after Quinn Snyder.

As for Steven Pearl, he has since deleted his Twitter account and is writing on Facebook that someone hacked into his Twitter account.

Like father, like son.