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FINALLY, Joe Ingles is through to the Euroleague Championship game after his Maccabi Tel Aviv team pulled off a miracle finish in its Final Four semi-final against CSKA Moscow.

Down by as many as 15 with 12 minutes left (40-55) and still by four with 19.2 seconds to go, the dual-Olympian’s third consecutive Final Four but first with Maccabi, finished in sizzling fashion.

Trailing 63-67, Maccabi ran a play with guard Tyrese Rice getting the ball to David Blu, then setting a wicked screen which opened the floor for Blu to drain a triple for 66-67.

CSKA took timeout and advanced the ball, 12 seconds left when Victor Khryapa fumbled receipt of the inbounds pass. Rice pounced on it to lay the ball in with five seconds to go and Maccabi ahead 68-67.

There still was time for CSKA to race the ball forward and Sonny Weems had a good look at an open shot.

But the Forum in Milan erupted as Weems’ shot missed and Maccabi was through to the Final.

“This feels great. To get a win like that, it’s been done all year,” Ingles said.

“We fought all year.

“Lots of people have written us off but we stuck with what we believed in those games.

“We play on size, we fight, we just do whatever we can. We are not willing to lose and it is a pleasure to play on this team.

“Now, we are one game away.”

Maccabi faces Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid in the Final after it summarily dispatched Ingles’ former club Barcelona 100-62 in the other semi-final.

LIZ Cambage, the first and only woman (so far) to dunk the ball in game at an Olympics, is tipped to be back with her former club Dandenong Rangers for the 2014-15 WNBL season.

And 2012-13 league Rookie of the Year, Stephanie Talbot, has quit Adelaide Lightning and will suit up with Canberra Capitals next season.

Last year named in the All Star Five at the FIBA World Under-19 Championship and this year drafted by the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, Talbot again was going to battle for minutes at Lightning when the club secured Emma Langford (Logan).

Cambage, who controversially crossed from her junior club Dandenong to Bulleen to be coached by Tom Maher, won the 2010-11 league MVP award with the Boomers.

Bulleen – now Melbourne – took out the WNBL Championship that season after two years of narrow Grand Final losses but lost again in 2011-12 to Dandenong.

Cambage subsequently has played overseas but this year decided to forego playing in the WNBA for Tulsa Shock to focus on the Opals’ World Championship campaign.

The Rangers are expected to announce their recruiting coup within a few days.

Cambage’s slam dunk on a drive through traffic from the keyway elbow against Russia at the London Olympics remains one of the most exhilarating moments of the 2012 Games, even though there has been a complete failure by the sport’s custodians to cash in on her largely unheralded extraordinary achievement.

Just imagine if a USA female player had been the first…

JOHN Gardiner, one of the great basketball figures in Australia, has died, aged 71.

A member of Australia’s first truly successful Olympic team in 1964 in Tokyo – it went 4-5 and included an overtime loss to powerhouse Yugoslavia – the NSW forward continued in the game as a coach and administrator.

He was an assistant coach for the NBL’s most successful club, Perth Wildcats, and even had the reins for four games.

John also coached more than 400 games in the WA SBL and won four consecutive titles with Perry Lakes Hawks.

As an administrator, John was a Basketball WA board member for more than 20 years and chairman of the SBL Commission of Basketball WA.

NBL fans with a longer history of the game would recall John’s incisive and occasionally sardonic television commentary.

Well-respected nationwide for his contribution to the sport, he was a member of the panel which selected the Wildcats’ 30th Anniversary All-Star Team.

More than any of those accomplishments – and those just skim the surface – John was a genuine good bloke in the true Aussie tradition.

When I first had the good fortune to meet him, he had been battling my brothers at national championships for years and been a teammate of one of them on Australia’s 1970 World Championship team.

He subsequently never failed to ask after them and was never short of great conversation or a good story from those halcyon days of the game’s evolution in Oz.

Passionate about basketball, he was among the men who launched the league and his contribution to the sport cannot be overstated.

He sorely will be missed. Heartfelt condolences to his family.