Istvan Nemeth poured in 27 points to help fire Hungary past Bulgaria and keep alive their hopes of reaching the next stage of the additional qualiying tournament in Spain.

The Bulgarians could have won for the third time in four games, but lost 74-67.

Bulgaria pulled even with Bosnia and Herzegovina in Group A additional qualifying Saturday night with a crucial 70-69 win that was in doubt until the very end with poor free throw shooting dooming the group leaders.

Bosnia and Herzegovina had the better of the action early on but could never really pull away thanks to a balanced scoring effort by the Bulgarians led by Roderick Blakney, Todor Stoykov and Kaloyan Ivanov who accounted for 24 of their teams 33 points at half-time.