in march 2013, ucla reportedly offered stevens between $2.5 and $3 million a year to leave butler. rumors circulated that stevens was in contract negotiations with ucla, but ultimately the rumors proved false and stevens stayed at butler. commenting on the situation, a source close to stevens said "brad doesn't understand why people would assume he's leaving." a few days later, stevens reiterated that he was very happy at butler and had no intentions to leave as long as he had the support of the university to continue running the program the "right way".