Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics was the second appearance of the sport as an official medal event. A total number of 23 nations entered the competition.
Olympic basketball returned to indoor competition in Harringay Arena, after the disastrous weather conditions of the final game in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Format
In the preliminary rounds, teams were divided into 3 groups of 6 squads and a group with 5 squads.
The preliminary round was played in a single round-robin format
Since the total number of competitors of the tournament is not a power of 2, a bye was given to team Egypt causing them to advance automatically to the classification semifinals. Also, the Ireland national team was named as the last placers (23rd) of the tournament due to the loss they've got and to the bye they earned from Team Iraq.
(*) NOTE: There are only players counted, which participated in one game at least, according to the official report, because the rosters for the matches are unknown. It is also unknown up to now, if there were more reserve players.
(*) and (**) It is uncertain if P. Benedek and J. Verbenyi played for Hungary in this tournament. The official report shows them, but Hungarian sources did not, however they are counted.
Republic of China(ROC)Chia Chung-Chang Chua Bon-Hua Kya Is-Kyun Lee Edward Lee Tsun-Tung Pao John Sung-Yuan Wee Tian-Siak Woo Cheng-Chang Yee Jose Yu Sai-Chang
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Egypt(EGY)Youssef Mohamed Abbas Youssef Kamal Mohamed Abou-Ouf Fouad Abdel Meguid Abu el Kheir Armand Philippe Catafago Mahmoud Gamal el Leissy Albert Fahmy Tadros Mohamed Habib Abdelrahman Ismail Hafez Robert Makzoume Hassan Moawad Medhat Youssef Mohamad Hussein Kamal Montassir Ahmed Nessim Mohamed Soliman
^Finkelman, Paul, ed. (2009). Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 To The Present. Vol. 4. Oxford University: Oxford University Press. p. 13. ISBN978-0-19-516779-5.