Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide's 99-70 win over Kentucky. Alabama advanced to the semifinals of the SEC Tournament and will face Florida at 2:30 p.m. CT Friday inside Bridgestone Arena.

Here's everything Oats said.

We wanted to turn up our defensive intensity. Thought we did. All our ball pressure. The official box score has us 29 points off turnovers. I think our ball pressure caused them some problems. Our plan was to try to keep them off of transition, keep them off the three-point line, pressure them on defense. On offense I thought we could attack them a little bit better downhill than we had in the past.

Obviously it's a thinner Kentucky team. They've got a lot of injuries with Robinson has been out on the year. And then Oweh got hurt a little bit. Only played 20 minutes. We were fortunate that they weren't as deep as us. I thought our transition could get to them. I thought we ended up breaking them towards the end of the first half, early second half.

These guys played great. Best game Jarin has played all year. He's is peaking at the right time while Baron is peaking at the right time. We were able to rest some of our older guys. We're going to have to rest our older guys. We'll need them against Florida.

We earned the double bye, which helped us tonight. Kentucky played last night. They didn't look as fresh as we did. We were able to build the lead up. Sears, nobody played more than 30. Sears is pretty durable. Outside of Sears, Baron is pretty young. Nobody else played more than 26 minutes. Nice to be able to get some rest for our guys tonight.

I hope that's coming. It looked like it tonight. I mean, if he hadn't gotten in foul trouble, he was headed for maybe a double-double. For sure he was headed for 20. He got that first drive, the and-one. Good to see him finish at the rim aggressively. Stepped up to the line with some confidence and knocked it in. He went three of five from three. He had some unfortunate fouls that kind of limited his playing time.

Shoot, he's an X factor for us with his size, athleticism, the way he can kind of play the three and four. Put him at 6'10" at the three, he's been great with the perimeter players. When he was playing as well as offense, doing what he's able to do on defense, he's a big X factor for us moving forward.

Yeah, I thought we could really pressure him. We pressured him at our place. Saw him not as much as we'd have liked.

They're down a little bit, 0-8. Five turnovers himself. Part of it, too, we have good matchups on Oweh. Kind of just overpowers most guards in this conference between Youngblood and then Dioubate. Jarin Stevenson with his length. We have different guys that are tough enough, strong enough, physical enough to kind of guard Oweh. We did a good job on him. Some of the other younger guys I thought didn't handle the pressure maybe as well.

We ended up turning them over 16 times. It's not a drastic amount. They were live ball turnovers that we went the other way and got layups and stuff off of.

With the threes, we know who their shooters are. Brea got too many off. Ended up 2-7. Perry only got three off. Kind of looking at Brea, Perry, and then Almonor, 0-2, and then Trent Noah 0-4. Those were the four we tried to focus in on. You kind of had those up there. The four main guys, too many they got off, but 3 of 16 wasn't too bad for their good shooters.

Yeah, we've kind of established ourselves as a top 10 program in the country over these last four or five years. Kentucky is good. We're also good. It's going to happen. I mean, hopefully there's some other teams we can rattle off some winning streaks against.

This Kentucky team, they've got a lot of injuries. They're not the full strength. We know that, so... But it's nice to get three of 'em. We had the home and away with them this year. They were a lot closer to full strength, I think they had everybody at their place. That was a big win. Now that they're kind of down, especially in their backcourt, I thought our guards really took advantage of the fact that they were a little bit thin in the backcourt tonight.

I mean, we're going to need Cliff, Grant, Dioubate, Jarin Stevenson. Our front court has to be a lot better than they were last game. Also our back court, to be honest with you. We just weren't very good.

There were a few positive things we did get 'em. Second half we kind of let it get to us. I thought their physicality, we're going to have to really lock into being significantly better against them.

They're one of the better teams in the country. They're fighting for a 1 seed like we are. This will be a big game for both the SEC Championship and a 1 seed.

I told him on the one, he shot the one, I don't know if it got tipped or not, it was an airball. He passed up a couple immediately after. I said because you miss a shot, we're not passing up open threes. That's not how we're doing.

He stayed aggressive. He only hit the one. At least he was aggressive, which keeps him honest. He's able to get downhill.

I thought the steals and the points off turnovers kind of got him going out in transition a little bit, got him aggressive going downhill, finishing at the rim. He was good. He's an instinctual player. Ends up with three steals. I thought his defensive intensity fueled his offense and got him going downhill.

I told him on the one, he shot the one, I don't know if it got tipped or not, it was an airball. He passed up a couple immediately after. I said because you miss a shot, we're not passing up open threes. That's not how we're doing.

He stayed aggressive. He only hit the one. At least he was aggressive, which keeps him honest. He's able to get downhill.

I thought the steals and the points off turnovers kind of got him going out in transition a little bit, got him aggressive going downhill, finishing at the rim. He was good. He's an instinctual player. Ends up with three steals. I thought his defensive intensity fueled his offense and got him going downhill.

You know what, we like to get to 80. For whatever reason, the guys that run our analytics box score, two of 'em got the flu while we were here. We got some subs in. I don't have it in front of me. I don't know how many possessions we had; none of my analytics box scores in front of me because apparently our subs in the analytics were not as good as our subs in the game (smiling). I don't have it. How many possessions was it?

Perfect. So we got to 80. That's what we like to get to, especially with a team that likes to run with us. Especially with their depth being as low as it was.

It was good. I mean, we knew he was going to be rusty. It's hard when you don't practice for a few weeks in a row. Only had a few practices. He's trying to attack Andrew Carr. Definitely got a few inches on him. He had the good kick-out to Jarin in the corner. I thought he was able to get a little flow, knock some of the rust off. We were able to get him almost 10 minutes.

I was happy with the way he played. He didn't have a turnover. Got the one shot that he probably shouldn't have taken. He was able to get a couple rebounds, had an assist. He wasn't bad in his minutes.