France beats Australia for bronze at World Cup

France has another bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup to go with one it won in 2014 — a measure of its world basketball status.

Australia still has none. Not a single medal at the Olympics, and now it's also been shut out at the World Cup.

France defeated Australia 67-59 in Beijing on Sunday to take the third-place game as the World Cup wraps up a two-week run across China.

The Boomers are 0-4 in Olympic bronze-medal games, and now 0-1 in the World Cup — previously known as the world championship.

Nando De Colo scored 19 to lead France with 16 from Evan Fournier. Joe Ingles had 17 for Australia with 15 from Patty Mills. Utah Jazz center Ruby Gobert, who scored 21 against the United States in a quarterfinal victory, scored only 2 points — but the French prevailed anyway, and will be the only medal-winning team from 2014 to win another this year.

"It means everything," Gobert said of the bronze. "Obviously it's not the one we wanted. We all know that. But being able to come back — we're the only team that was on the podium five years ago and on the podium now. So it shows our heart, shows the commitment we have and we're only going to get better from that."

Australia led for the entire game until France inched ahead 47-46 on two free throws with 9:01 left in the game. France continued to surge with Australia looking run down — much like its loss in the semifinals against Spain.

Reuters

"Once we came back in the third quarter we could see that the game had changed," France coach Vincent Collet said. "Australia was still there with the score, but it was not the same game."

Collet credited his guards for upping the pressure out front, and the big men dominating the boards.

Australia built a 40-25 lead to open the third quarter. But then France finally awakened and cut the lead to 46-42 after three quarters with De Colo, Fournier and Vincent Poirier carrying the scoring load heading into the deciding final quarter.

France held Andrew Bogut to 5 points and Matthew Dellavedova to 4, another big reason for the win.

Australia coach Andrej Lemanis cited fatigue late in the game as a factor, which he said explained 19 turnovers.

"France also made some shots they needed to make and made some plays that gave them a bit of momentum. It got away from us a little."

Fournier sympathized with his Australian counterparts, mentioning names like Bogut and Dellavedova.

"I know those guys and it's awful for them," he said. "But that's definitely what we didn't want, to finish the tournament feeling like (crap) like that. We finished third before and it felt great. This one is kind of different because we felt like we could have done better."