Spain vs. Serbia 2016, Olympic basketball: Time, TV schedule and live stream for women’s semifinal

Spain and Serbia will compete for the right to get demolished by the United States in the first women’s basketball semifinal.

by Matt Ellentuck

Aug 18, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

With Australia eliminated, Spain and Serbia will play in an unlikely opening semifinal game on Thursday to earn the right to almost certainly get throttled in the gold medal game against the United States.

Spain came out on top in the teams’ first meeting in their opening game of competition, 65-59. A back-and-forth game had neither team shoot well with the Serbians at 40 percent and the Spaniards 32 percent. The difference came at the free throw line. Spain took 10 more attempts and made six more thanks to Marta Xargay’s 7-for-8 shooting performance. Spain also out-rebounded Serbia by 12, including 18-5 offensively.

Xargay finished with a team-high 15 points ,and her teammate Anna Cruz scored 13 points and added 11 rebounds for Spain. Jelena Milovanovic led the way for Serbia with a game-high 17 points, followed by Danielle Page’s 14 and Sonja Petrovic’s 12.

Fast forward six games and the teams are now a win away from a guaranteed medal. An upset and a buzzer-beater put them in this position on Tuesday.

Playing the Australians -- the unit poised to give the Americans their only challenge in Rio -- Serbia wasn’t supposed to advance. The three-loss team from group play had just a pair of close wins to their name, their group’s fourth-best point differential of six teams and no one near the size of the Opals’ Liz Cambage. But tough defense on Australia’s guards forced 26 turnovers that was even too much for the 6-foot-8 center’s 29 points to overcome.

Spain edged out a 2-point win at the buzzer in quarterfinal play against Turkey off Cruz’s one-legged runner from a step inside the key. A hectic final 20 seconds saw Turkish forward Lara Sanders steal an Alba Torrens pass and finish with a layup on the other end to tie the game with four seconds left. The game appeared headed for overtime until the former Minnesota Lynx guard put an end to it with a heroic shot.

The winner of this game will likely be Rio’s silver medalist. Spain already lost to the Americans by 40, and Serbia the same by 26.