The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

My spine tingled.

I tried to watch the basketball, but all I could hear were drums at the far end of the court.

It reminded me of the World Cup 14 years ago in America, when I travelled from Nantucket to Boston to watch Nigeria take on Argentina.

Five Senegalese men in Madrid beat those drums, repeatedly, for their national team.

Senegal drilled a three, and Moustapha Gaye, the Africans' coach, pumped his fist in the air.

"Senora," I said to the journalist to my right, "would you like to dance?"

Then everything changed.

A jet could have taken off inside the Telefonica and it wouldn't have been any louder because there in the stands opposite the teams' benches was a Baltic Sea of Red that was emitting so much noise I could hardly hear myself think.

All of Riga, it seemed, had made the journey to sunny Spain, or on this occasion cold and wet Madrid, to back their team in one of the greatest shows of support ever for women's basketball.

You had to see it to believe it.

They had drums as well, and fans with painted faces.

Lat-veee-uh! Lat-veee-uh! Lat-veee-uh!

The red team then showed everyone how to play basketball. They whipped the ball around the perimeter to get open shots, harassed the Senegalese into hurrying up theirs and sprinted up the floor for fast breaks.

Just like that, Gunta Basko, Anete Jekabsone-Zogota and Co had reeled off 27 points to kill the game.

What are we to make of this? The FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament is in Spain, but it's a Latvian event.

The fans from the Baltic country accounted for 99% of the atmosphere on Monday. It was electric.

How did they pull this off?

The basketball federation organized a charter for everyone to come down.

And I mean everybody!

The legend even showed up.

Who is that?

Before there was Jekabsone-Zogota and Basko, there was Uljana Semjonova, the 2.13m Latvian center who played for the USSR from 1968 to 1986.

She won gold medals in Montreal in 1976 and 1980 in Moscow, and world titles in Sao Paulo (1971), Colombia (1975) and Brazil (1983).

For 10 consecutive EuroBaskets, starting in Italy in 1968 and finishing in Italy in 1985, she won gold medals.

For health reasons, the 56-year-old Semjonova doesn't travel.

But even she hopped on the charter and she made the journey to Madrid. She sat in the stands at midcourt, behind the benches.

The plan is for Semjonova to visit the FIBA Hall of Fame at Alcobendas while she's in town. She was inducted last year but did not travel and attend.

As for the current crop of Latvians, well, because of the incredible final at last year's EuroBasket in Italy where Russia held off Spain to win gold, I'd almost forgotten about this team from the Baltics that had everyone buzzing about women's basketball.

This is the country that is going to host next year's EuroBasket Women in Riga?

Excellent!