1953 South American Basketball Championship

The 1953 South American Basketball Championship was the 15th edition of this regional tournament. It was held in Montevideo, Uruguay and won by the host, Uruguay national basketball team. A record seven national teams competed. It was the first to follow the first World Championship in 1950.

Results
Each team played the other six teams once, for a total of six games played by each team and 21 overall in the preliminary round. The three-way tie between Chile, Peru, and Paraguay was broken by a sub-bracket; each was 1–1 against the other teams in that sub-bracket. The point differentials within the bracket gave Chile the top spot in it with +5, Paraguay had +4, and Peru had -9. This was mostly due to Chile's relatively large victory over Peru while the other two games (Peru-Paraguay and Chile-Paraguay) had both been much closer.