Basketball On The Internet.

THE Boomers wasted no time beating themselves up yesterday ahead of tonight’s bronze medal playoff against Spain, labelling themselves as “pathetic” and their semi final performance against Serbia “un-Australian”.

Easy fellas. You’re not the first team to suffer an unexpected setback. But you just might be the first team – Boomers team, at least – which can bounce back.

Maybe the unremitting focus on getting that gold medal contributed to the Boomers’ one misstep along this journey.

The real challenge now is to bounce back against, arguably, the most talented team in the tournament not named USA.

FIBA doesn’t rank Spain at #2 behind the Americans for nothing though their anticipated third straight Olympic gold medal game showdown was waylaid by some uncharacteristic early setbacks for the Spaniards against Croatia and Brazil.

Pau Gasol and Co still took the USA to a tight 82-76 result in their semi and they will be a monumental challenge for our Boomers to wrest a historic bronze medal.

“This is the really the first time we’ve been challenged in this tournament, when things haven’t gone our way,” head coach Andrej Lemanis said of the task ahead after the 26-point loss to the Serbs.

“It’ll be a test of character for us now to make sure that we bounce back and come out and play the way we want to play and represent ourselves in the bronze medal game.”

For what it’s worth ahead of tonight’s bronze battle, Australia and Spain have met five times in Olympic competition and the tally is 3-2 to Spain. It beat the Boomers at their first meeting in Munich in 1972 by 79-74 and 12 years later in Los Angeles won 101-93.

In Seoul, Australia prevailed 77-74 and again at Sydney 2000, the Boomers came through a “must-win” game against the Spaniards 91-80 victors.

In London four years ago, Spain won 82-70 and that most recent result probably is the only one even remotely relevant tonight, if it is at all.

Beating Spain tonight – 12:30am AEST, midnight in SA/NT, 10.30pm in WA – would be a colossal feat for the Boomers but they are as capable of getting this as Australia was in Atlanta in 1996 when it was right in the hunt until finally held out 80-74 by Lithuania.

It says something about this team that its players took the Serbian result on the chin and were angry at themselves for letting such a golden opportunity slip away so depressingly. They need to channel that positively, the clear indication they will be fired up.

They will need to be against a Spanish team with seven NBA players, Andrew Bogut on Gasol one of several marquee matchups.

IN the women, the USA (above) claimed the gold medal belting Spain 101-72 and Serbia continued on its winning way, ousting France 70-63 for the bronze.

That US team is the closest I have seen to a women’s equivalent of the “Dream Team”, simply an awesome lineup from player #1 through to #12.