In 2001 Latvia were crowned as the surprising team of EuroBasket.

With the young, and back then anonymous, powerful center Kasparas Kambala, they barely lost to hosts Turkey on opening night.

Later, they surprised by knocking Slovenia out and in the qualifying round shocked their favourite neighbours from Lithuania with a sweet 18-point win that's still written in Vilnius as one of the darkest days in the history of Lithuanian basketball.

That was enough to finish eighth - their best record since the country's new foundation.

Since then, Latvia were unable to escape from the 13-16 rankings for three EuroBaskets in a row, but there's more to it than that.

Again and again, Latvia manage to play a great game against one of the top teams in their group, but lose to the 4th seeded team, the one who's actually fighting with them for a spot in the next phase.

In 2003 they faced future champs Lithuania on opening night.

As expected Lithuania wanted nothing but revenge, but despite smashing almost every other team in that competition on their way to the gold, they had the hardest time against

		In 2003 it was a loss to Israel that doomed the Latvians.

Latvia.

It took an overtime, a crazy corner three-pointer by Arvydas Macijauskas that went in off the glass but eventually Lithuania won 92-91.

Two days later Latvia forgot to show up to their key win-or-die game against Israel and lost 91-75 on their short way home back from Sweden.

In 2005, their key game was on opening night and once again it was Israel who qualified for EuroBasket, even back then, from the additional qualifying round, and after losing to Latvia by 23 points in the qualifying round to EuroBasket.

Nevertheless Israel won 65-74, and got off to a fast start.

On the following day, Latvia woke up while playing Spain, the future world champs.

Once again a great game against a big time team, once again it went to a surprising overtime, but just like before Latvia lost, 114-109 this time, and went home.

2007 is here and not much has changed in Latvia.

Their opening game against the favorites from Croatia, for a change, finished with a win.

Despite two losses in the EuroBasket qualifying round last summer, this time Latvia was on top with a 85-77 win.

The following loss to Spain was natural, and then came the key game, against the 4th seed of the group – Portugal.

The last time Portugal won a EuroBasket game was during their last visit to the competition, in the year 1951.

Back then they beat Scotland 49-42 in a battle over the 15th spot.

Latvia changed history, managed to lose 77-67 to Portugal in one very poor offensive performance, and went back home very early again.

True, it took a huge upset one point win by Croatia over Spain behind a crazy clutch three point shot by Marco Tomas, to eliminate Latvia this time, but it seems like until Latvia will figure that in EuroBasket as well timing is everything, shots like that will continue to fall in, and finish the story for Latvia sooner than it should.