[cuppett777]

I even had an assistant saying, 'Do you want to get these guys out?'" Calipari said.

Maybe he should've listened.The coach said he kept his starters in the game because Alabama was pressing on every possession, fighting to the very end to cut into its big deficit.

"You don't know my bench," said Calipari, whose team has won seven of eight, the last five in a row. "If they had stopped pressing, I would have started subbing at three minutes [to go]."

That said, he's decided that this is the way it must be: Kentucky will only go with six players right on into the NCAA tournament, assuming he can keep them all healthy.