After the Opals’ quarter-final shock, following on from exits in water polo and hockey, the second-week fortunes of Australia’s team-sport Olympians are down to one. The men’s basketball team has had its most promising Games campaign in more than a decade, with wins over world-class opponents France and Serbia and a spirited showing against the United States.

An early elimination always stings, but considering how well things have gone to plan for the Boomers in Rio, losing at the point would constitute a wasted opportunity. Speaking to Inside Sport, assistant coach Luc Longley surmised the challenge: “The test of the thing is the results. You really only get to play eight games leading in, then you do it. So it’s hard to know how everything’s tracking, and things change.”

The former Chicago Bulls’ big man noted that at recent major international events, the Boomers’ main problem had been at the offensive end. But in Rio, Australia is ranked second in the tournament in scoring, field goal percentage and assists.

“We’re always going to be top of the pack defensively,” Longley said. “Easy baskets – we just didn’t get out and run enough, especially when you’re good on the glass. Teams that are all-star-type teams, which is what [the Olympics] is, struggle to score.”

Boomers assistant coach Luc Longley.

But to a reductive, only-the-medal-matters type of thinking, the Boomers’ game at midnight against Lithuania is its most important. Win, and they’ll have two chances at playing for the nation’s first-ever basketball medal. Lose, and everything they showed in the medal round will be reduced to a conversation piece.

With NBA bigs Jonas Valanciunas and Domantas Sabonis, Lithuania has quality size. More than that, it’s a tough-and-together outfit that stakes their national pride on their hoops performances. The basketball-made nation on the Baltic, with a population of less than three million, has been a fixture at the end of the Olympic tournament since its first Games in 1992. Up until London, the Lithuanians had played in the medal round five straight times, earning three bronze medals. Twice, in Atlanta and Sydney, it came at the expense of the Aussies.

Longley missed both of those contests (out for all of ’96, and just the third-place game in 2000). His dominant impression of the ’96 game, still the closest the Boomers have come to a medal, isn’t a happy one: “I remember them hitting a bunch of threes.” He can only hope his memory isn’t soon refreshed.