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AUSTRALIA versus Lithuania is a matchup made in Olympic men's basketball heaven.

The Lithos have been our green-and-gold adversaries and arch rivals for more than 20 years since they first appeared under their own national identity at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992.

In their historic first international matchup, Lithuania won 98-87 and a rivalry was born.

Twice it was Lithuania who denied Australia a medal - first with a thrilling 80-74 success to claim the bronze in Atlanta, then again four years later in the bronze medal playoff in Sydney 89-71.

They beat us comfortably in Athens 100-85 and though the Boomers had some measure of "revenge" with a massive 106-75 intrapool win in Beijing in 2008, it was the last game ahead of the quarter-finals for which the Lithos already had qualified.

(And it had some seriously weird stats, including game-high scorer Andrew Bogut stroking 3-of-3 three-pointers in his 23-point tally.)

In London, the teams avoided each other, Australia rated by FIBA as finishing 7th, Lithuania 8th.

So here we are again, from midnight tomorrow (AEST), 11.30pm in SA/NT and from 10pm in the west, battling the arch enemy and sometime nemesis Lithuania, a country with a population of less than 3million but in which basketball rules supreme as its #1 sport.

Australians have appreciated the battling Lithuanians since first encountering their playing component in the Soviet Union's touring teams in 1987-88.

Lithuania provided several charismatic and multi-talented players such as Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis and Rimas Kurtinaitis for the Soviet team which in Seoul in 1988, eliminated the USA and won the gold medal.

NOT SOVIETS: Sarunas Marciulionis, Rim Kurtinaitis and Arvydas Sabonis winning gold with USSR.

The USA responded by hammering Australia by 29 points in the Boomers' historic first appearance in a bronze medal playoff. (Four years later, the USA sent the Dream Team to Barcelona to exact its revenge on the world.)

To some extent then, it rightly can be claimed the Lithuanians have been directly or indirectly responsible for all three of the Boomers' bronze medal playoff losses in Olympic company.

Arvydas Sabonis, arguably the best passing big-man of all time, and Co. kept us from a bronze medal in Atlanta.

SABONIS: Arguably best passing big-man of all time.

Four years later, with Sabonis retired, Lithuania still comfortably prevailed after current Boomers assistant coach, triple-NBA champion Luc Longley missed the playoff following an ankle injury in the semi finals.

Lithuania is 4-1 on Australia in Olympic contests, since that first 98-87 win in Barcelona in which Sabonis scored 26, Kurtinaitis 21 and Marciulionis 17 with 8 assists. (Former West Adelaide Bearcats import Romanas Brazdauskas also had 4 boards, 2 points and 2 assists in that one.)

MARCIULIONIS: Was a superstar and now is a FIBA Hall of Famer.

In FIBA World Championship play, the Boomers hold the edge, ahead 2-1 after winning 71-61 in Athens in 1998. Lithuania still finished the tournament 7th to Australia's 9th, as it did again in Japan in 2006, claiming Australia's scalp 78-57.

At the 2014 FIBA World Cup, Joe Ingles led the Aussies to a magnificent 82-75 victory, although Lithuania went on to play for bronze while the Aussies bowed out in the first round after intrapool play.

In a Rio Olympics warmup game, Lithuania beat the Boomers 81-68. But Andrew Bogut did not play.

This match now looms as on par with the corresponding match against Croatia in Atlanta as arguably the biggest in our Olympic history.

We won that one against the odds. There's no time like the present to keep marching forward.

Even greater arch and historical rivals, Croatia and Serbia meet in the rival quarter-final with its winner meeting the Boomers-Lithos winner in one semi final.

In the other half of the draw, the USA faces Argentina, and Spain meets France in matches of equal magnitude.

The door to the medal round assuredly is ajar for Australia. Lithuania stands in the way. If this truly is to be our medal breakthrough Olympics, we could not possibly ask for a more deserving opponent to eliminate.