Anyone who didn't see Alabama basketball's home win over Florida on Wednesday night, but caught the final score crawling across the bottom of a bar room flatscreen − Alabama 98, Florida 93 − surely presumed another fireworks show from one of college basketball's most explosive offenses. Another barrage of 3-pointers from a red-hot shooting team, led by the SEC's leading scorer, point guard Mark Sears, right?

It was anything but.

But in holding off the Gators in overtime to maintain a slim lead at the top of the SEC standings, Alabama showed it can win on a night when its 3-pointers find a lid on the basket for most of the way. And that's exactly what will be required when that same lid inevitably shows up again in the postseason, because the occasional cold shooting nights befalls even the best shooting teams.

For Alabama (19-7, 11-2 SEC) this one took a different recipe.

UA WINS AGAIN: Alabama basketball outlasts Florida in overtime in offensive battle to stay atop SEC

It took five extra minutes of overtime. It took six blocked shots from center Grant Nelson. It took some picked-up slack for one of Alabama's hottest shooters, Latrell Wrightsell, who missed the game with a head injury. But most of all, it took a gritty effort to overcome 2-for-18 shooting from 3-point range in the first half, followed by a reticence to attempt any threes in the second. Nine minutes ticked off the second half clock before UA attempted its first 3-pointer of the second half.

"(In a timeout) I said guys, we haven't taken a three. I don't care what our percentage was in the first half, that's not how we play," Oats said. "You have to hunt good threes. I thought we took some contested ones we shouldn't have taken in the first half, but any good three we have, we have to take it."

Over the final 11 minutes, the 3-pointer finally started falling as Alabama clawed its way back from the 2-for-18 start to at least finish at 25% (8 for 32). Keeping the score close until then, however, demanded some fight. Alabama scored at the rim effectively with penetration, put-backs and a few pick-and-rolls, surprisingly easily against a bigger UF frontcourt. While waiting for its long-range shooting to come around, UA took good care of the ball and nabbed 21 offensive rebounds to generate second-chance points.

On one possession near the end of the first half, the Crimson Tide followed four missed shots with four offensive rebounds − one each for Jarin Stevenson, Rylan Griffen, Mouhamed Dioubate and Aaron Estrada − before Griffen buried just the second 3-pointer of the night. The score narrowed the Gators' lead to 37-35 and served notice that the home team, on an off night, might ultimately find a way.

"We talked about that possession at halftime. It was the biggest one we talked about, because as much stuff as we screwed up, this is how we can win the game," Oats added. "… I thought that was huge, and I was fired up after that one. It was kind of a microcosm of how we needed to play to win in the second half."

In a season where Alabama has broken a school record for 100-point games, the Crimson Tide scoring 98 at home surprised nobody.

How it got there wasn't the way Oats would draw it up.

But it got there just the same.

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Who needs the three-pointer? On this night, not Alabama basketball