Florida guard Water Clayton Jr.‘s free-throw didn’t fall through the net, becoming anyone’s to grab. But no worries. The Gators would soon have another chance.

Before any Alabama men’s basketball player could secure the rebound, Alijah Martin grabbed it instead. Florida maintained possession, and Martin made the next free throw with 52 seconds left. That happened in a moment when Alabama was grasping for anything it could get to go its way to try and pull off the late comeback.

Well, grasping for anything but rebounds.

Florida won again and again on the glass Wednesday night. As a result, No. 5 Florida beat No. 7 Alabama 99-94 at Coleman Coliseum. The Gators finished with a 50-35 rebounding edge.

“I don’t know if it’s a lag from the tough loss at Tennessee or guys are just tired, I don’t know,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “We knew they were a tough rebounding team. We’re usually better than that, when we go into a game knowing we’ve got the rebounds. It seemed like they beat us to about every 50-50 ball. They obviously destroyed us on the glass.”

The worst Alabama (23-7, 12-5 SEC) had been outrebounded prior to Wednesday was back in November. Illinois won the battle on the glass that night 42-35 in what turned out to be a 100-87 victory for the Crimson Tide.

Then, Alabama blew that -7 out of the water against Florida. The Crimson Tide finished -15 in rebounds to the Gators.

“We’re going to have to challenge some of these guys,” Oats said. “See if it was breakdowns. Some of the rebounds were breakdowns. Some of them were we had guys leaking, not getting in the mix. Guys are going to have to determine if they want to make some tough plays or not. I didn’t think we made too many tough plays tonight.”

For a while into the second half, guard Mark Sears was Alabama’s leading rebounder. He finished the game with six. Only one player had more than him: Clifford Omoruyi with seven.

Mind you, Sears is listed at 6-1, the shortest on the team. Omoruyi is 6-11.

“I thought we would get a little bit better effort than we got out of some of these guys tonight,” Oats said.

The good news? That performance was a bit of an outlier. Alabama had been outrebounded only twice in SEC play and three times all season prior to Wednesday.

So, the Crimson Tide needs to do its best not to let that performance on the glass bleed over into others.

“It’s really about the small details,” guard Labaron Philon said. “Boxing out. Being able to have pop and when the ball’s off the rim, go get it. They got more rebounds than us tonight. It was obvious they were beating us to every ball. We’ve just got to come back in and get better. Be ready to work hard.”

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.