Australia came as close as you can get to a medal in the men’s basketball, losing 88-89 to Spain in the bronze medal match.

And in the final moments, Patty Mills was called for a controversial foul with 5.4 seconds on the clock, costing the Boomers a chance at its first ever medal.

The foul on Sergio Rodriguez and an “arm-bar” foul on Aron Baynes, which gifted NBA star Pau Gasol two critical free throws, left the Australians irate at the referees.

“Obviously we are disappointed, at times we felt we were outnumbered on the court for the majority of the game,” Andrew Bogut said.

“It felt like we were playing a different sport. The superman dived into me and the referees bought it.

“Some of them you could see on the tape how obvious they were. You tap these guys and they go flying and the referees bought it.

“We tried to adjust knowing what they were going to do but the last two fouls were tough on us.”

Andrew Bogut: "Questionable calls all game. That's FIBA basketball. Wouldn't expect anything less from the refs."

— Hoops_Heaven (@Hoops_Heaven) August 21, 2016

In the final play, Australia were unable to get a shot off to land the killer blow.

Spain disrupted the planned execution, when David Andersen’s bounce pass to Matthew Dellevedova went wide.

“We had one defensive stop to win the medal … the call didn’t go our way. We had five seconds left and obviously it’s disappointing we didn’t even get a shot up to win,” Mills said.