It was the Women’s EuroBasket final that the fans wanted.
Pre-tournament favourites Spain will face Belgium, undoubtedly the best team at EuroBasket so far on Sunday in Ljubljana.
Alba Torrens showed her class with a stunning 27-point display to take Spain past Hungary 69-60 to reach their fourth final in the last six editions.
Torrens went 5/7 from three-point range in her haul – the most by a player in a semi-final – and it was her career-high as well.
This was a real statement of intent from Spain. Written off by a few after that opening day loss to Latvia, they are now one win away from being crowned champions.
“The first thing is that we are very happy to be here tonight in this position,” Torrens said. “The second thing is that I know what brought us here is the team.
“I know what brought us this victory and that is the team and I know that we will be here always as a team. I don’t see any other way. I am so thankful and proud to be part of this team. It is not about who made the points, it is about our character. When the game got tough, we were all there.”
The loss ends the fairytale run for Hungary, who bow out with a great deal of pride. They had trailed by as many as 16 points but did shrink it to 60-55 in the latter stages before Torrens put the game beyond them.
“They played well and started the game really hard,” said Hungary guard Agnes Studer, who led the team with 13 points.
“I felt like we were running after them. I am so proud of my team because we could come back, but we didn’t have the extra baskets we needed. Alba Torrens played excellent and it was really hard to guard her. They deserved this victory.”
After going out in the semi-finals in the last two Women’s EuroBaskets, it proved to be third time lucky for Belgium as they finally made their first final after surviving a late scare to beat France 67-63.
However it was far from straightforward after they almost blew a 17-point lead but eventually held their nerve to ice the game from the foul line.
Once again, Emma Meesseman was a basketball poet with 24 points, six rebounds, five assists, four steals and three blocks that steered Belgium to another win.
“From the beginning of this tournament we said we wanted to go to the final and take the gold medal,” said Belgium’s Antonia Delaere.
“To finally get to the final is an amazing feeling. We have been building for 10 years now. Those last minutes was a roller-coaster. The stress was really high but we kept on doing our defensive work that helped us a lot.”
