Florida’s basketball team almost turned the Southeastern Conference race upside down on Wednesday night in Tuscaloosa against the top offense in the country.

Instead, the Gators could not hold on against the league-heading Alabama Crimson Tide and fell 98-93 in overtime despite a valiant effort over 45 minutes of play.

Florida drops to 18-8 and 8-5 in the SEC. A win would have been gigantic for the Gators, but an Aaron Estrada putback was the biggest play in overtime with seven seconds left to play.

It was an exciting game but the outcome was nonetheless disappointing. Here are the five major takeaways from the game.

I know the game went into OT and that Florida has usually been good in overtime. But this game was like nothing we have seen this season.

The two teams combined for 165 shots in the game. That’s crazy.

What’s crazier was that Florida was outrebounded by 10. That’s not been a typical game for this team.

… the fact that Florida lost on the road at the SEC leader will not hurt the Gators. And anybody watching had to think this is certainly a deserving team.

Still, a win in a game you led most of the way could have been pretty big. In the end, Florida’s defense hurt the Gators as Sam Walters started making wide-open threes in the second half.

And Grant Nelson, a 6-foot-11-inch forward, killed Florida with 22 points. Mark Sears made some big shots, but he was also 5-for-15. Florida defended him well.

He’s not the first name on the scouting report, but he does the little things. Wednesday night, he had 20 points with eight rebounds and eight assists.

He was also one reason Alabama won the battle of the boards.

Florida did get 27 points from Walter Clayton Jr., but he needed 24 shots to get there.

Even though they were outrebounded by eight which is unusual for this team. Alabama made only 2-of-18 from three so there were a lot of wide rebounds.

The best stat of the first half was that Florida had 13 assists on 16 made baskets.

Offense wasn’t the problem in the second half either. But the defense was hardly elite.

Florida actually led by as many as 10 points with a little more than eight minutes to go and had two shots at the basket in the last minute to take the lead.

But the looks were not great and even though Alabama also missed a chance at the end of regulation, you felt like Florida had a chance to steal it.

Instead, the Gators had their first bad overtime of the season. They still had a chance at the end, but a Clayton Jr. turnover was costly.

The Gators return home on Saturday, Feb. 24, to host the Vanderbilt Commodores inside the O’Connell Center. Tipoff is slated for 1 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.