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After the first two games of group play in the men’s basketball tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, it looked like Australia might be the second-best team in the competition and like we might be witnessing the end of Spain’s run as an international hoops power. As the tournament draws to a close, though, we find the two nations in familiar positions: Spain back on the medal stand, and Australia, heartbreakingly, just on the outside looking in.

The Spaniards just barely outlasted the Boomers in Sunday’s bronze medal game, notching an 89-88 victory in a thrilling consolation contest thanks to a pair of clutch free throws by veteran point guard Sergio Rodriguez — free throws that, it must be said, followed a questionable blocking call against Australian star Patty Mills.

After a righty hook shot by bruising Detroit Pistons big man Aron Baynes gave Australia an 88-87 lead with 9.7 seconds remaining in a nip-and-tuck fourth quarter that saw 10 lead changes in the final four minutes, Spain took control looking for an answer. Coach Sergio Scariolo decided to put the ball in the hands of Rodriguez, an ace playmaker who had strung out the Aussies in the pick-and-roll all afternoon, and watched as the soon-to-be Philadelphia 76ers point man attacked downhill out of the high pick-and-roll off the inbounds pass.

As he drove, he moved from right to left, attempting to Eurostep around Mills, who backpedaled as Rodriguez drove across his face. Rodriguez appeared to be losing his balance and going to the ground even before the contact, and his try at a righty scoop layup came up empty. And yet, the officials decided there was enough contact on the play to send Rodriguez to the stripe for a pair, which he coolly splashed through, giving Spain a one-point lead with 5.4 seconds left.

After a timeout, Australia looked to respond in kind, with coach Andrej Lemanis drawing up a play that would see Mills — the San Antonio Spurs’ spark-plug, Australia’s lead offensive weapon and Rio’s second-leading scorer, behind only Bojan Bogdanovic of Croatia — rocketing toward the ball for a dribble handoff and a right-hand drive toward the basket with the paint totally cleared out of Spanish defenders. While Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio stuck with Mills on the cut to take away the handoff, Mills did break open toward the paint on a curl … but Australian center David Andersen, handling the ball at the elbow, tried to force the ball to Milwaukee Bucks guard Matthew Dellavedova at the free-throw line rather than waiting for the play to develop.

Spanish forward Victor Claver batted the pass away, sending the ball careening into the backcourt as the clock ticked down to zero. The final buzzer brought elation for the Spaniards, who bounced back from a troubling start to the Olympic fortnight to finish 5-3, give Team USA another stiff test in the semifinals, and add a bronze medal to the silvers they earned in Beijing and London.

If indeed this is the end of the line for Gasol in international competition — the 36-year-old legend said after the loss to the U.S. that he plans to take it year by year from here on out — he went out on a brilliant note, scoring a game-high 31 points on 12-for-15 shooting and pulling down 11 rebounds in 33 minutes to lead the Spanish charge. Gasol capped his excellent offensive display with two critical free throws to give Spain a one-point lead with 28.8 seconds let, ending his Summer Games by vanquishing the charity-stripe demons that plagued him earlier in the tournament to keep La Roja in the fight in the closing minute.

The final buzzer also brought heartbreak for the Aussies, who now have reached the final four of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament four times … and have finished in fourth place, without a medal, in all four of them.

That, by itself, is a bitter enough pill to swallow. Seeing the bronze medal slip between their fingers on a questionable foul call with less than six seconds remaining, though, makes it all the more brutal.

While that final-seconds call understandably will draw most of the attention, the Boomers hurt their own cause in the early going. The offensive toothlessness and dysfunction of their semifinal loss to Serbia carried over in a first quarter that saw Australia log as many 24-second violations as made field goals through the first five minutes, allowing Spain race out to an early lead behind hot starts from Gasol and Chicago Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic.

Mistimed passes led to turnovers, which led to Spain runouts and open looks, which led to a 40-28 lead for the Spanish after a Gasol layup with 4:12 left in the second quarter. Australia battled back, though, led by Aussie captain Andersen, who settled their offense down in the first quarter and made timely shots in the second, and an improved defensive effort that sparked a half-closing 10-0 run that cut Spain’s lead to 40-38 entering intermission.

The Boomer effort was short-circuited early in the second half, when Dallas Mavericks center Andrew Bogut — Australia’s defensive heartbeat and a key secondary playmaker from the high post — picked up his fourth foul just 18 seconds into the third quarter. Less than two minutes later, an aggressive drive by Rubio forced Bogut into his fifth foul, disqualifying him and sending him to the sideline for good with 7:54 left in the third and Spain holding a one-point lead. Bogut finished with two points, five rebounds, three assists and one block in just 14 minutes of play.

As they did throughout the tournament, though, the Aussies persevered. After needing 11 shots to score 10 points in the first half, Mills cranked up his attacking, snaking through the Spanish defense in pursuit of the rim en route to 13 third-quarter points to carry the offense. With Bogut and Baynes battling foul trouble, 25-year-old reserve Brock Motum stepped up in a major way. The 6-foot-10 Washington State product, who has had a couple of Las Vegas Summer League cups of coffee with the Utah Jazz, played with great activity on both ends and chipped in several buckets — the loudest one coming on a big left-handed dunk on the great Gasol — to help Australia stay close, and head into the fourth quarter down just three at 67-64, setting the stage for a brilliantly played fourth quarter in which neither team could get more than two possessions’ worth of separation, the outcome of which remained in doubt right up until the final buzzer.

Though it remains to be seen whether several of the veterans responsible for Spain’s tremendous success over the last four Olympic cycles — Gasol, Juan-Carlos Navarro, Felipe Reyes and Jose Calderon, to name a few — will return to the international stage, Spain could be well-positioned to remain competitive in the years to come, thanks to young senior team players like Rubio, Mirotic, the about-to-enter-the-NBA duo of New York Knicks center Willy Hernangomez and Oklahoma City Thunder swingman Alex Abrines, and some promising prospects in the youth ranks:

Australia, too, profiles as a rising force to be reckoned with on the international stage. Young contributors Motum (12 points, six rebounds in 16 minutes) and Ryan Broekhoff (13 points on 5-for-5 shooting in 17 minutes) acquitted themselves well in Sunday’s loss alongside veteran stars Mills, who ended a sensational run in Rio with a team-high 30 points on 11-for-23 shooting, and the 36-year-old Andersen, who added 15 points, five rebounds and three assists off the bench to close his fourth Summer Games with the Boomers. With their play in this tournament, the Aussies proved they belong near the top of FIBA’s rankings; with recent top-10 NBA draft picks Ben Simmons, Dante Exum and Thon Maker likely to join the team in the years to come, they could be poised to stay there for quite a while.

There will be plenty of time to focus on the future, though. For now, Spain exults in one more trip to the medal stand for the core that elevated it to the ranks of the international elite. And for now, Australia laments the 5.4 seconds and the one bang-bang call that separated them from their first ever men’s hoops medal.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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