FIBA Basketball World Cup

The FIBA Basketball World Cup, or simply the FIBA World Cup, between 1950 and 2010 known as the FIBA World Championship, is an international basketball competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1950, except for two occasions.

The tournament structure is similar, but not identical, to that of the FIFA World Cup; both of these international competitions have been played in the same year since 1970. A parallel event for women's teams, the FIBA World Championship for Women, is also held quadrennially, in the same year as the men's event, but in a different country. The current format of the tournament involves 24 teams competing for the title at venues within the host nation. The winning team receives the Naismith Trophy, first awarded in 1967. The current champions are the United States, who defeated Turkey in the final of the 2010 tournament.

Read more about FIBA Basketball World Cup:  History, Qualification, Tournament Format, Naismith Trophy, Results, Records and Statistics

Famous quotes containing the words basketball, world and/or cup:

    Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.
    Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)

    Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.
    Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)

    I worked as a waitress till I was fired because I dumped a cup of hot coffee in the lap of a half-drunk guy who was pinching my butt.
    Juli Loesch (b. c. 1953)