The big story at the FIBA World Cup of Basketball in Beijing this week has been the United States’ stunning back-to-back losses, marking the first time Team USA won’t take home gold in nearly 15 years and raising all sorts of questions for USA Basketball as they try to bounce back in time for the Olympics next summer in Tokyo.
But the tournament has raged on, and now there’s even more controversy after Spain was able to eke out a 95-88 double overtime win against Australia in the semifinals on Friday to advance to the gold medal game, leaving the Boomers furious as they left the court and levied accusations about questionable foul calls that they believe sank their chances.
Head coach Luc Longley and center Andrew Bogut had particularly colorful things to say after the game, with Bogut reportedly making dollar signs at the referees and telling reporters to Google the location of FIBA headquarters (it’s in Switzerland).
“Google where headquarters of f*cking FIBA is. F*cking disgrace…”
Andrew Bogut is not happy after Spain eliminated Australia from the #FIBAWorldCup2019 in double OT.
📹: @jmiklovas pic.twitter.com/G5FX7DdOWn
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) September 13, 2019
Longley took it a step further with some choice NSFW language.
Via The Guardian:
“We’ve got to find an altar somewhere and burn a sacrifice to the basketball gods, because they’re not kissing us on the d-ck yet, like they do Spain,” he said. “I feel like Spain are kissed on the d-ck by the basketball gods every time we play them.
“It’s gut-wrenching for the guys; they’ve been so f-cking good, so consistent and played so hard and I felt like they deserved to win that and it doesn’t feel like that’s the right result.”
Australia will now play bronze medal game on Sunday against France, who lost to Argentina. Marc Gasol finished with 33 points for Spain, while Ricky Rubio added 19 points, 12 assists, and seven rebounds. Patty Mills led Australia with 34 points.
