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
^ abcdeChile wins the five-way tiebreaker, with the following point differential in head-to-head matches among tied teams: Chile +25, Korea +6, Belgium -1, Philippines -9, and China -21.
A bye was given to Egypt as total number of teams is not a multiple of 2, which gave them bye to the classification semifinals. Also, Ireland was deemed to have finished last, due to the loss to Switzerland and a bye they earned from Iraq.
Hungary forfeited all of their matches in the classification round, and a win were awarded to their respective opponents, which are marked by asterisks.
Each country was allowed to enter one team of up to 14 players and they all were eligible for participation (with a maximum of five on the court at any given moment). A total of 298(*) basketball players from 23 nations competed at the London Games:
(*) 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
19
Egypt(EGY)Youssef Mohamed Abbas Youssef 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.