KENTUCKY HC MARK POPE Q&A:
* (Dejected tone) Alabama's a great team. Really responded coming off a tough loss on the road. Tough one for our guys. Losing is the worst.
* On the 9-0 run after tying it at 81-81... Felt like we were battling fatigue and frustration. Struggling to guard legally. All those things came together.
* On not getting the volume of 3s he wants... They're pretty good at defending it. We were not as good as we wanted to be in terms of punishing with cutters coming off two feet. We need to get way better at that and understand it better. We were a little one-side, one-cut today. Couldn't quite see it and feel it.
* Alabama is terrific, not taking anything away from them, but we can be so much better. Still so much room to grow.
* Nelson was a complicated matchup for us, but to send him to the FT line 10 times was not something that typically happens. We had a tough time guarding him legally and bringing gap help.
* Did not feel like they tried to do things one-on-one when things got tough. He liked the 20:8 assist to turnover margin. Would always like to see 30:8, but didn't think that was an issue in this one.
* Pope says he's not critiquing the officials on this, but the way the game is trending right now, they're allowing little guys to just wrap up big guys with two arms and hold them. We're not doing a good enough job of rolling hard through that and forcing the officials to call something.
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ALABAMA HC NATE OATS Q&A:
* Proud of his guys for bouncing back after a poor showing Tuesday night at Ole Miss.
* Kept Brea to only 3 attempts. Did a good job of keeping him off the line. The defense certainly didn't win the game for us, but that was important, and our offense was really good. Grant Nelson came out ready to go.
* Guys got in the gym after losing. That usually shows up.
* Great playing here at Rupp. Love the environment. Love the way people are into basketball. They had been playing great at home, so this is good for us.
* If we learned lessons from that loss on Tuesday night, it may have been the best thing to happen to us all year.
* Kentucky showed some physicality today that he didn't see in all the games they watched preparing for this game.
* Tried to come downhill on ball screens and attack some of the weaker defenders with that.
* Asked if UK can kinda follow their blueprint from last year of making the Final Four without a great defense, Oats says you can do it if you offensive if you've got a good enough offense, but he's not convinced that UK can't be good defensively. Says Butler and Oweh and Williams are all guys who can guard you. We made some tough shots today.
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KENTUCKY PLAYERS Q&A:
