Before there were designs of upsetting Michigan in the Round of 16 and potentially winning their first ever NCAA Tournament regional final, the relationship between Tennessee Volunteers head basketball coach Cuonzo Martin and the fans in Knoxville was souring. One day prior to their First Four victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes, fans were actively calling for Martin’s upheaval in a desperate attempt to lure former head coach Bruce Pearl away from Auburn before he ever coached a game.

Instead, Martin remains the head coach at Tennessee and the Vols are making a miraculous run that one writer tentatively prefaced with half-hearted generalities early last week. However, is it possible that this run could be costly for the Vols?

When you try to advocate hiring somebody to fill a vacancy that doesn’t exist, it tends to strain the relationship with the person that occupies that position.

We treated Cuonzo Martin like he was subletting Bruce Pearl’s place while he was away, forgetting that Bruce wasn’t on a sabbatical, he was on a mandated three-year ban from college basketball. Now, we’ll ultimately pay the price, fiscally or otherwise.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t enjoy what Cuonzo Martin and the Tennessee Vols are doing because of the doom and gloom to come, but, reality is something you should always be cognizant of, and… there may be doom and gloom to come.

We have nobody to blame for that but ourselves.

We created the tenuous nature of the Martin tenure in Knoxville, and now, having captained an 11-seed into the Sweet 16 with an opportunity to go even deeper on Friday, Martin’s stock is rising.

At year’s end, Cuonzo Martin’s name will be on the radar of several schools, and he’d be absolutely silly not to listen, knowing full well that any sort of failure in Knoxville coupled with any sort of success in Auburn, Alabama, will almost certainly lead to history repeating itself.

Positions that we all deem as lateral, or even subsidiary, from a basketball standpoint, could have appeal to a guy like Martin who has been through the ringer in Knoxville. And, when you consider that Martin is the 11th-highest paid coach in the conference, anybody offering a pay raise and job security has to be viewed as a viable option.

The point of all this is, the University of Tennessee is going to have to pony up if they hope to keep Cuonzo Martin in the fold (and there’s no true guarantee that will be enough), and that’s all the byproduct of a vocal plurality–36,000 petition signees seems to qualify that statement–of fans who seem to lack enough foresight to realize that Bruce Pearl and Tennessee can never again co-exist.

Cuonzo Martin is your coach, but, even with our fearless leader here at FootballTime.com apologizing so eloquently and so many loudmouthed fans now changing their tune, you have to wonder how long that will be the case. Is it possible that we alienated the one person who came to Tennessee believing we could continue to win after Bruce Pearl had sealed our fate in the eyes of the NCAA?

Cuonzo Martin was the man who stepped in to fill that void left by Pearl’s demise, and three years later we wanted to turn him loose in favor of Bruce Pearl because he couldn’t fix Bruce’s mess fast enough? A week later, most of us realize the error in our ways, but the damage may be done.

This weekend, as the Vols head to Indianapolis with an opportunity to become the most decorated team to ever wear the uniform, take solace in the fact that, at best, you’ll witness history, and, at worst, you’ll have witnessed something unexpected. Hope that when it’s all said and done you’ll get to continue to see the program moving in a positive direction. Hope the university does whatever it takes to make Cuonzo Martin feel welcomed at Tennessee even when its fans didn’t.

Hope because, in the wake of the uncertainty we’ve created, hope may be all we have.