European Basketball Championship
Current season, competition or edition: EuroBasket 2017
|
|
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1935 |
| Inaugural season | 1935 |
| No. of teams | 24 |
| Countries |
 FIBA Europe member associations |
| Continent |
FIBA Europe (Europe) |
| Most recent champion(s) |
 Slovenia (1st title) |
| Most titles |
 Soviet Union (14 titles) |
| Related competitions |
FIBA European Championship for Small Countries EuroBasket Women |
| Official website | FIBAEurope.com |
EuroBasket, also commonly referred to as the European Basketball Championship, is the main international basketball competition contested biannually by the men's national teams governed by FIBA Europe, the European zone within the International Basketball Federation.
The first championships was held three years after the establishment of FIBA, in 1935. Switzerland was chosen as the host country, and ten countries joined. Only one qualifying match was played between Portugal and Spain. With a complicated formula, the final would see Latvia as champions. According to the rule at the time, the winner had to hold the following games. The following two tournaments would be won by Lithuania and would see the introduction of Egypt which would compete in EuroBasket until 1953 winning one championship at home in 1949 along the way.
After the 1946 edition saw the first jump shot performed by Italian player Giuseppe Stefanini, the following edition would see the Soviet Union compete in their first edition in the 1947 edition and would see the Soviets win the first of eleven out of the next thirteen European championships. During the 50s, the Soviet Union won four of the five competitions held during the decade with only tournament that they didn't win being the 1955 edition. This was won by Hungary as they finished top while the Soviets finished in third place. It was also during that edition that the thirty-second shot clock was introduced, which changed the style of basketball.
The Soviets would take out all of the championships during the 60s with them having a fifty-five game winning streak which would be broken by Yugoslavia in 1969. For Yugoslavia, they were starting to come to challenge the Soviets with the main player in Radivoj Korac aiding the team to two silvers and a bronze medal in his career which stopped in 1967. The 1960s would see also a change in how the competition was viewed and run with FIBA putting a limit on the amount of countries that entered to 16 with qualifiers being the way to bring them down to that number as it first appeared in 1963. The following edition would see the competition not be held in one city with Tbilisi joining Moscow in hosting games and in 1967 the first modern games was held, because the games were televised and international media were present.
...
Wikipedia