The Boomers stumbled to a 76-75 win over Jordan in their opening game of the 2010 World Basketball Championships in Turkey.
The match went down to the final seconds, NBA star David Andersen made a pair of crucial free throws to give the Boomers a rare lead. Jordan had three final shots to win the game but all missed under pressure from the Boomers’ defence.
Aleks Maric led the Boomers in scoring with 23 points, while Andersen added 22 and Patrick Mills 10. Andersen and Maric also each had nine rebounds apiece.
Zaid Abbaas led the Jordanians with 20 points and Rasheim Wright added 16, but neither could make shot attempts in the closing seconds to give Jordan the upset win.
Jordan (ranked 38) were the surprise packet of the 2009 Asia Championship, winning the bronze medal to qualify for their first-ever world titles, and were clearly not intimidated by Australia (ranked 11) as they led for most of the game.
Coach Brett Brown said it was a bittersweet victory.
"We're elated with the win obviously but you leave that game disappointed," Brown said.
"That's not the Boomers team I've seen play over the last few months. The experience will serve us well however."
"We've pride ourselves on our defence but tonight we were terrible. Our rotations were average, we struggled to contain the dribbler on the drive, and we weren't coming up with loose rebounds. We gave up 75 points and you've got to hold teams below 70."
Brown said despite his team's defensive struggles, he was heartened by the way his team came through with the fighting win.
"We really clawed our way back in to the game tonight and found a way to win," Brown said.
"I thought that showed tremendous guts and character. That game was going south and we needed our bigs to step up and they did just that. Andersen, Nielsen and Maric were really good for us down the stretch."
"The way Maric played in particular showed the reason we were aggressive recruiting him. He is a legitimate interior five man, and a huge presence who compliments our other bigs. We got him the ball and he delivered. We were not winning that game without Maric."
The Boomers now need to make a big adjustment for their next opponent, world number one Argentina.
"Against Argentina, we really need to bring it," Brown said.
"Tonight we had no aggression or confidence, and we weren't physical. We lost our swagger and I need to help get the guys back on track. I didn't recognise the team today but there's no better time to bring that to the table against world number one."