Basketball at the 1952 Summer Olympics

Basketball at the 1952 Summer Olympics was the third appearance of the sport of basketball as an official Olympic medal event. 23 nations entered the competition.

The top six teams at the 1948 Summer Olympics qualified automatically, as did the winners of the 1950 FIBA World Championship (Argentina), the top two teams at the 1951 EuroBasket (USSR and Czechoslovakia), and the host country (Finland). Thirteen other nations competed in a qualifying round to determine the last six places in the sixteen-team Olympic tournament.



Qualifying rounds
Nations that lost two games in the qualifying rounds were eliminated. When there were only two teams left in each group, those teams advanced to the main tournament.

Group A
Group A consisted of Cuba, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Switzerland.

Group B
Group B consisted of Hungary, Greece, Israel, and the Philippines.

Group C
Group C consisted of Canada, Italy, Turkey, Romania, and Egypt.

First round
Bye: Romania
 * Canada def. Italy, 68–57
 * Egypt def. Turkey, 64–45

Second round
Romania's first game was a loss to Canada. Italy and Turkey played each other, with Turkey's second loss eliminating them.

Bye: Egypt
 * Canada def. Romania, 72–51
 * Italy def. Turkey, 49–37

Third round
Italy and Romania, who had both lost once, played each other. Romania's second loss eliminated them, while Canada and Egypt played each other, with Egypt being served its first loss; Canada qualified.


 * Italy def. Romania, 53–39
 * Canada def. Egypt, 63–57

Final round
Italy played its fourth game of the tournament against Egypt. The closely contested decisive game ended with Egypt qualifying for the main competition and Italy being eliminated.


 * Egypt def. Italy, 66–62

Group stage
The top two teams in each group advanced to the quarterfinal round.

Group A
  

 

 

Group B
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Group C
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Group D
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Quarterfinals
The top two teams in each quarterfinals advanced to the semifinals. The other two teams in each quarterfinals played in the fifth through eighth place classification.

Group E
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Group F
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Semifinals
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 * Classification 5–8 semifinals

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 * Medal round semifinals

Finals
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 * 7th place final

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 * 5th place final

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 * Bronze medal match

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 * Gold medal match

Participating nations
For the team rosters see: Basketball at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's team rosters.

Each country was allowed to enter one team of 14 players and they all were eligible for participation. A total number of 317 players were entered.

A total of 301(*) basketball players from 23 nations competed at the Helsinki Games:



''(*) NOTE: There are only players counted, which participated in one game at least. Up to now only two reserve player can be named, 14 reserve players are unknown.''