It looks like Christmas has come early for Kentucky fans this year. On the heels of Louisville’s first loss since February, reports emerged last night that Chane Behanan’s 2012 Final Four ring was up for auction on a high-end sports memorabilia website called Grey Flannel.

Grey Flannel quickly suspended the auction, and added an explanatory note to the listing

The ring was quickly removed from auction after Behanan’s mother, Heaven Warren, notified Grey Flannel that it had been stolen. In subsequent interviews with local media this morning, Warren indicated that she had stashed the ring at her mother’s house in Cincinnati to ensure its safekeeping. She told the Courier-Journal’s Adam Himmelsbach that she thought the auction listing was a hoax when she first saw it last night, and had discovered otherwise only after she called Behanan’s grandmother to have her look in her jewelry box. Warren speculated that the ring was likely taken by someone passing through her mother’s house, which is apparently a congregating place for friends and extended family, and said Behanan was “distraught” by the news. Another source close to the team told the Courier-Journal that the junior forward was “just as surprised as anyone,” and Behanan himself reportedly denied any involvement in a Facebook post last night.

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1. Why do we keep talking about Coach K going to the NBA?  Recent rumors linked the Duke head coach to the opening with the Cleveland LeBrons, but as expected, K restated that he’s happy in Durham and isn’t going anywhere.  In our opinion, the tipping point for Krzyzewski came in the mid-2000s when he seriously considered leaving Duke for the Lakers job; his dalliance with the prospect of coaching Kobe Bryant in a marquee environment wasn’t enough to get him to leave.  Now, at 63 and with a realistic shot at passing Rupp for five national titles in his career, he’s settled on summering with the US men’s national team to satisfy his desire to work with the world’s best athletes while spending the remainder where he clearly belongs.  Good choice.
2. The Kansas athletic department is looking more and more like a rogue actor, from top to bottom.  With new revelations coming out yesterday that AD Lew Perkins took gifts of thousands of dollars worth of athletic equipment from a local company, we have to wonder where the lines were drawn there, if they were at all.
3. John Calipari has no comment about the Eric Bledsoe controversy, but Andy Staples believes that Calipari’s utilization of plausible deniability is phenomenal in its execution — even better than the dribble-drive offense of which the coach has been so successful in using.
4. To that end, how great would it be if the NCAA finally got serious about regulating these programs and quit concerning itself nearly as much about the Alabama States and West Freakin’ Georgias of the world.  Creating a level playing field for everyone should be the goal, but how about we start with the 75-100 biggest schools and work down from there?
5. We knew Memphis head coach Josh Pastner was an insane workaholic when it came to recruiting, but we didn’t know just how crazy until we read this.  For better or worse, we suppose.