And that was all before the Boomers even arrived at China's World Cup, which according to Andrew Bogut is tougher than the NBA and a logistical "shambles".

Despite all that, Australia have reached the final stop of their World Cup journey intact - a semi-final defeat of Spain in Beijing on Friday enough to guarantee a maiden international medal by reaching Sunday's decider in the Chinese capital.

The Boomers have gone 6-0 through four Chinese cities since September 1, with coach Andrej Lemanis admitting they had paused to reflect on what they'd achieved once securing an Olympic berth with their passage to the second round last week.

"Now if we can get the medal for those guys (that played in qualifiers but not the World Cup) that would be something pretty special," he said.

"This new (qualification) format, it's a process for sure and it's nice now at the end of all that to hopefully give ourselves some reward for all that work."

Bogut wasn't part of the side that travelled to the Philippines and were implicated in a nasty on-court brawl that led to 13 players, including 10 from the host nation plus their coach and assistant, suspended.

But the NBA veteran-turned NBL MVP with the Sydney Kings says the last fortnight has had its challenges too.

"It's tough, it's tougher than an NBA schedule," he said after their quarter-final defeat of the Czech Republic.

"FIBA is way more physical than the NBA, first and foremost and it's pretty hard recovering, just 48 hours rest (between games)."

China has brought with it its own extra challenges, particularly with the Boomers forced to snake their way up the country through four cities with just one day between games.

Twice they have played at night knowing that result determined their next day's movements.

Australia's quarter-final did not finish until nearly 11pm on Wednesday in Shanghai and they'll play their semi-final in Beijing on Friday at 4pm.

"Everything in China takes twice as long as they say it's supposed to; traffic, a lot of people everywhere, nothing everything runs on time," Bogut said.

"Our last hotel was a shambles, so we had to figure out where to eat half the time, and had to figure out those things on the fly.

"But that's part of travelling all over a country. We've experienced this before, and I think we're resilient when it comes to the off-the-court stuff."

THE BOOMERS' ROAD TO BEIJING

* Qualifiers began in November 2017 and included trips to Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Qatar, Kazakhstan and Iran.

* Australia went 10-2 through those, with the brawl in the Philippines drawing international headlines and a trip to Kazakhstan coming the week before Andrej Lemanis coached Brisbane in the NBL finals.

* The Boomers have since beaten Canada, Senegal, Lithuania, the Dominican Republic, France and the Czech Republic to reach the final four in China.

* The Boomers' semi-final will be their seventh game in 13 days across in four Chinese cities.

Australian Associated Press