Bulgaria national basketball team
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The Bulgaria national basketball team is the basketball side that represents Bulgaria in international competitions.
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[edit] Eurobasket 1935
The Bulgarian side came in eighth place at the first European basketball championship, the Eurobasket 1935 held by the International Basketball Federation's FIBA Europe continental federation. They lost to Italy in the preliminary round then defeated Hungary. Following this, the Bulgarians lost their classification matches to Belgium and Italy. They finished with a 1-3 record.
[edit] Eurobasket 1947
Twelve years later, the Bulgarian team again competed. In Eurobasket 1947 they finished eighth again, this time out of 14 teams. In the preliminary round, the Bulgarians split their two games, advancing to the upper bracket semifinal groups. There, they lost all three of their games, putting them in a 7th/8th classification match with Hungary. This time, the Hungarians were victorious, defeating Bulgaria 59-29.
[edit] Eurobasket 1951
The Bulgarian team's third appearance was at Eurobasket 1951 in Paris. They won their two contested preliminary games, outscoring opponents 145-70, and gained a third win by Romania's forfeit. In the semifinal round, the Bulgarians became enmeshed in a three-way tie for first place in the four-team group after losing to France but winning the other two games; they ended up with the second ranking. This pitted them against the Soviet Union in a semifinal matchup, which the Bulgarians lost. Their final game was the bronze medal match against France; France again proved victorious and Bulgaria took 4th place.
[edit] Eurobasket 1953
Bulgaria's next appearance was in Moscow for Eurobasket 1953. They found themselves on the unfortunate end of a three-way tiebreaker after finishing 3-1 in the preliminary group, and their 3rd rank in the group sent them to the classification round, a disappointing turn of events for a team which had expected to do at least as well as they had two years previously. They won their next 5 games to take the highest place available to them after the preliminary round. Thus, the 9th place team in the tournament had an 8-1 record.
[edit] Eurobasket 1955
Bulgaria's preliminary round loss at Eurobasket 1955 was not as devastating as their preliminary round loss two years earlier had been, and their 2-1 record allowed them to advance to the final round along with preliminary leader Czechoslovakia. After losing to the three eventual medallists in the final round, Bulgaria finished the round with a 4-3 record and 4th place in the tournament.
[edit] Eurobasket 1957
Bulgaria hosted the next tournament, Eurobasket 1957, in Sofia. They breezed through their three preliminary round games, and kept their win streak through the first six of the final round games, including an 82-80 victory over Czechoslovakia. In their final game of the tournament, which by chance was against the similarly undefeated Soviet Union squad, Bulgaria led by 4 points at halftime, 23-19. Their lead did not last through the second half, however, as the Soviets powered to a 60-57 final that gave Bulgaria a silver medal, Bulgaria's first European medal.
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International basketball
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