1963 FIBA World Championship

4th FIBA World Championship

Tournament details

Host nation

Brazil

Dates

May 12–25

Teams

Champions

Brazil (2nd title)

Tournament leaders

	Players	Teams
Points	Ricardo Duarte (23.1)	United States (83.8)

< 1959

1967 >

The 1963 FIBA World Championship was an international basketball competition hosted by Brazil. The Philippines was originally supposed to host the tournament with games planned to be held at the 30,000 seat Big Dome in Manila but was revoked of hosting rights after Diosdado Macapagal refused to allow players from Yugoslavia and other communist countries to enter the country. Brazil being the defending Champion and a previous host, fairly manage to re-host the Championship from May 11 to 23, 1963 in Rio de Janeiro and won the 1st back to back title with just six (6) games by seeding the well rested host team in the final round only.

Competing nations

Event	Date	Location	Berths	Qualified
Original Host nation			0	~~Philippines~~
1959 FIBA World Championship/Host nation	16-31 January 1959	Chile	1	Brazil
1960 Summer Olympics	26 August–10 September 1960	Rome	1	United States
EuroBasket 1961	29 April–8 May 1961	Beograd	3	Soviet Union Yugoslavia France
South American Basketball Championship 1961	20–30 April 1961	Rio de Janeiro	3	Peru Uruguay Argentina
Wild cards			5	Canada Mexico Puerto Rico Italy Japan

Suspension

FIBA suspended the original host country Philippines after Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal refused to allow players from Yugoslavia and other communist countries to enter the host country. Brazil being the defending Champion and a previous host, fairly manage to re-host the Championship. Later, the Philippines, despite being the Asian champion, was forced to play in a pre-Olympic tournament in order to qualify in the 1964 Summer Olympics.

Competition format

Preliminary round: Three groups of four teams play each other once; top two teams progress to the final round, bottom two teams relegated to classification round.
Classification round: All bottom two teams from preliminary round group play each other once. The team with the best record is ranked eighth; the worst is ranked 13th.
Final round: All top two teams from preliminary round group, the 1960 Olympic champion, and the host team play each other once. The team with the best record wins the championship.

Preliminary round

	Qualified for the final round

Group A


Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
Soviet Union	3	3	0	222	177	+45	6
France	3	2	1	200	181	+19	5
Uruguay	3	1	2	195	214	−19	4
Canada	3	0	3	158	203	−45	3

France

64–54

Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
Yugoslavia	3	3	0	262	208	+54	6
Puerto Rico	3	2	1	234	212	+22	5
Japan	3	1	2	198	231	−33	4
Peru	3	0	3	181	224	−43	3

Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
United States	3	3	0	256	202	+54	6
Italy	3	2	1	258	242	+16	5
Mexico	3	1	2	240	260	−20	4
Argentina	3	0	3	206	256	−50	3

Rank	Team	Record
1	Brazil	6–0
2	Yugoslavia	8–1
3	Soviet Union	7–2
4	United States	6–3
5	France	4–5
6	Puerto Rico	3–6
7	Italy	2–7
8	Argentina	4–4
9	Mexico	4–4
10	Uruguay	4–4
11	Canada	3–5
12	Peru	2–6
13	Japan	1–7
=	Philippines	Suspended

1963 FIBA World Championship

Competing nations

Suspension

Competition format

Preliminary round

Group A

Group B

Group C

Classification round

Final round

Final ranking

All-Tournament Team

Top scorers (ppg)