After 16 lead changes and 8 ties, Wednesday’s prime time prize fight between No. 13 Alabama and No. 24 Florida fittingly came down to one more physical rebound and one more play by a sensational guard.

With Alabama clinging to a 1-point lead and 11 seconds to play in overtime, Rylan Griffin’s 3-pointer glanced harmlessly away from the rim and toward a waiting swamp of 3 blue-clad Gators, only for Griffin’s outnumbered Crimson Tide teammate, Sam Walters, to win a box out and tip the ball to Aaron Estrada, who made a put-back to stake Alabama to a 3-point lead with 7 seconds to play. Moments later, Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. had a game tying 3 rattle in and out, and the Crimson Tide had won the best game played in the SEC this season.

The thrilling, comeback win (Florida led by as many as 10 in the second half) protected Alabama’s 1-game lead in the SEC over Tennessee, as the Crimson Tide chase a 3rd SEC regular-season title in just 5 seasons under Nate Oats. More important, though, it showed that Alabama can beat a terrific basketball team on a night they aren’t making their trademark perimeter jump shots.

The Crimson Tide made just 2-of-18 3-point attempts in the first half, trailing by 4 at the break. While Alabama did heat up in the second half (6-of-14 to finish 8-of-32), the Crimson Tide shot just 25% from distance for the game, needing to find other ways to beat the Gators, who came to Tuscaloosa having won 8 of their previous 9 games.

Alabama, as great teams do, found other ways to win.

They outrebounded Florida, one of the nation’s best rebounding teams, 54-44, grabbing a staggering 21 offensive rebounds, including the vital 21st one. Alabama scored 56 points in the paint, channeling their other great strength, attacking the basket, on a night when the jumpers didn’t fall.

Because Alabama shoots so many 3-pointers, it’s easy to forget how proficient the Crimson Tide are at attacking the tin with their brilliant guards, Mark Sears, who should be an All-American, and Estrada. But the eye test proved it Wednesday night, as Alabama’s brilliant counter to Florida’s wise decision to extend its defense and push Alabama off the 3-point line in the second half was to attack and attack and attack some more.

In many ways, it was vintage Nate Oats basketball. His Alabama teams, like the Buffalo teams before that, will bomb away from deep, embracing the analytical value of high volume 3-pointers due to the high reward of making triples. But Oats also drills his teams to find 2-point shots near the rim, and everything Alabama runs is designed to create a clean look from deep or a drive to the bucket. Witness this execution in the Tide’s previous game against Texas A&M:

The numbers bear this out just like the eye test did Wednesday against Florida. On the season, Alabama has shot 800 3-pointers (48% of their total shots), making 38% of those jumpers. But the Tide have also created a magnificent 696 shots at the basket (41.7% of their shots). That means Alabama only takes 2-point jumpers on 11.3% of possessions. If you want to unlock the secret recipe for having the best offense in the country, Alabama’s is Dreamland BBQ type stuff.

The Crimson Tide needed every bit of their offensive brilliance to survive Florida on Wednesday.

The Gators, no slouches themselves offensively (9th in the country in KenPom offense, entering the game), consistently found ways to overload the floor and attack Alabama’s weakside, generating mismatches and easy baskets of their own at the rim. Florida’s magnificent guards did the rest. Zyon Pullin, the 6th most valuable player in the country entering the game, per the analytical website Bart Torvik (Alabama’s Sears is 2nd), was tremendous, scoring 17 points and dishing out 6 assists in defeat. Pullin’s backcourt mate, Clayton Jr., scored a game high 27 points, grabbing 8 rebounds and slinging 5 assists of his own. The duo combined to beautifully handle everything Alabama threw at them, a kitchen sink of blitzed ball screens, hedges and double teams.

The combination of talent and high level performance, coupled with an electric, loud atmosphere at Coleman Coliseum, delivered one of the best college basketball games this season, an overtime thriller between two teams that should play well into March, beginning with the SEC Tournament.

“We found a way to win against a really good team,” Oats told the media after the game. “(Florida) was as hot as anyone in our league. Ninth ranked offense in the country, tremendous on the glass. We didn’t do a great job on defense, and made them look even better than the 9th-ranked offense. But we found a way to win.”

Alabama, like Florida, is what the numbers say they are on defense: pedestrian. Neither team is engaged long enough defensively and both teams can make life too easy on straight-line drivers. But Wednesday night, when both teams had single digit turnovers despite playing an extra 5 minutes, was more about what both teams did beautifully than what anyone did poorly.

Aside from Mohamed Wague’s uncalled, vicious elbow to the head of Florida freshman Alex Condon, which should result in a league-issued suspension for Wague and a reprimand for the refs who not only missed the call, but mind-bogglingly called a foul on Condon on the play — it was a clean game, too — two outstanding teams who could play 2 more times in the next month, depending on how the SEC Tournament seeding shakes out.

It was a high level game befitting the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, not the last full week of hoops in February.

It was also a game where we once again saw how Oats, who lost 75% of his production from a season ago and 3 assistant coaches, has built a behemoth on the Capstone. Grab portal gems like Sears, Estrada and Grant Nelson, who led Alabama with a hard-fought 22 points on Wednesday night, high-level recruits like Sam Walters, and put them together in an uncompromising system that optimizes player strengths and wears on opponents physically.

“Alabama has a way it wants to play, generating plenty of high value 3s and creating driving lanes to get to the basket on offense. Plenty of pressure on defense. They drill it and they don’t change those core principles. They might adjust from night to night, but the value system in the program is the same. It’s what makes Oats special,” ESPN’s Jay Bilas told SDS in January.

On Wednesday night, in the best game played in the SEC all season, Alabama looked championship special. Again.