While the 2014 FIBA World Cup tips off on Saturday, there’s still a lot most people don’t know about this tournament. Compared with the Olympics, it’s a relatively small-scale operation that just doesn’t draw a lot of attention in the United States, although in recent years that has changed some. The stakes are pretty high, as the winner of the tournament earns an automatic spot in the 2016 Olympics, so for all teams involved a trophy will mean they won’t have to use their best players in international competition.
But, like any tournament that is 60-plus years old, the World Cup has a fairly interesting and complex history that lends itself to some strange goings-on. When it started as the FIBA World Championship in 1950, all of the games were played outside. The players were all amateurs, or in one case barely more than a pickup team. Political protests even prevented games from being played.
With many of these facts falling into the “strange but true” category, here are 15 Things You Didn't Know About the FIBA World Cup.
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Yugoslavia has won the most titles with five.
The first U.S. team was made up solely of factory workers from a Chevy plant in Denver.
The first final was held outdoors in front of 25,000 people.
The record for highest attendance was set at the 1954 Final, where USA defeated Brazil in front of 34,000 people at the Maracanãzinho.
Political turmoil prevented many games from being played in the 1950s and 1960s.
It was so cold for some of the games in 1967 that players needed electric heaters and blankets on the bench.
Brazil holds the record for most points scored in a game with 154 in 1978.
Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was the MVP of the 1982 tournament.
The 1994 tournament was the first time professionals were allowed to participate.
The U.S.'s biggest win was a 146-67 thrashing of South Korea in 1990.
In 2002, Argentina snapped USA's 58-game winning streak in games played with professional players.
The tournament will be expanded to 32 teams and moved to the year after the FIFA World Cup beginning in 2019 to better mirror soccer's calendar.
Since professional players were allowed into the tournament, the only non-NBA player to win MVP was Yugoslavia's Dejan Bodiroga in 1998.
The leading all-time scorer is Oscar Schmidt of Brazil, who averaged 24.1 PPG over 35 total games.
No player has ever been named the MVP of the tournament more than once.
