Basketball at the 1952 Summer Olympics was the third appearance of the sport. 23 nations entered the competition.
The top six teams at the 1948 Summer Olympics qualified automatically, as did the 1950 World Champion (Argentina), the top two at the 1951 European championships (USSR and Czechoslovakia), and the host country (Finland). Thirteen other nations competed in a preliminary round to determine the last six places in the sixteen-team Olympic...
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Basketball at the 1952 Summer Olympics was the third appearance of the sport. 23 nations entered the competition.
The top six teams at the 1948 Summer Olympics qualified automatically, as did the 1950 World Champion (Argentina), the top two at the 1951 European championships (USSR and Czechoslovakia), and the host country (Finland). Thirteen other nations competed in a preliminary round to determine the last six places in the sixteen-team Olympic tournament.
The matches were played in two different arenas: the eliminating matches and the opening round of the tournament in the Tennis Palace in the heart of the city, where two courts had been available for practice, and the semi-finals and finals in Messuhalli II, adjacent to the Olympic Stadium.
Nations that lost two games in the preliminary tournaments were eliminated. When there were only two teams left in each group, those teams advanced to the main tournament.
In the first round, Cuba and Bulgaria won.
Cuba and Bulgaria played each...
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