England | |||
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FIBA ranking | None | ||
Joined FIBA | 1937 | ||
FIBA zone | FIBA Europe | ||
National federation | English Basketball Federation | ||
Coach | Paul James | ||
Olympic Games | |||
Appearances |
1 2012 zone_championship=EuroBasket |
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Zone championship | |||
Appearances | 4 (1946, 1955, 1961, 1981) | ||
Commonwealth Games | |||
Appearances | 1 | ||
Medals | Bronze: 2006 | ||
Uniforms | |||
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1 2012
The England national basketball team represents England in international basketball competitions. The team is organised by England Basketball, the sport's governing body in England. Currently, England only competes internationally at the junior level. In 2005 England, along with the basketballscotland and their counterparts in Wales combined forces to form the Great Britain national basketball team, with the target goal to field a competitive team capable of winning medals at the London 2012 summer Olympics. England's direct affiliation to FIBA will end on 30 September 2016 as they will be joining Scotland and Northern Ireland to form a Permanent Great Britain Side, while Wales will remain independent .
England's biggest success were its four qualifications to the EuroBasket, which is Europe's prime basketball event. Further, the team won the bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
England's first European championship appearance was at Eurobasket 1946. They lost all four of the games that they played, and subsequently finished last in the field of ten teams.
A few years later, England qualified for the Eurobasket 1955 in Budapest, where the English Team had a couple of strong showings. After losing their preliminary round games they beat Switzerland, a major player at the global stage until the mid-50s. The victory marked England's first victory at a major international basketball event. Later, England outscored Austria as well. Eventually, the team placed second in the five teams of the classification group, moving to the 9–12 classification semifinals. There, however, England could not take advantage of the gained self-confidence and lost the next two games. Overall, England finished in 12th place out of the 18 teams, a considerable improvement from its last eurobasket appearance in 1946.