In the 1960s and 1970s, the country was among the continent's basketball elite as it finished runner-up at the FIBA Africa Championship in 1962 and won bronze in 1975.
The country has produced some NBA players, most notably Manute Bol and Luol Deng of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Deng, however, is not eligible for the national team, as he has been naturalized in the United Kingdom and plays for the UK in FIBA competitions and England in the Commonwealth Games. Traditionally, most of Sudan's most talented players have usually come from the South. (Bol and Deng e.g. were both born in South Sudan) Hence, the independence of South Sudan brought forth new challenges.
In recent years, several of the Sudan's top players have played key roles for teams of the US-based NCAA. Yet, these players normally do not play for the national team. Hence, the level of the national team has been very low. It finished winless at both the 2005 Islamic Solidarity Games and the 2011 Pan Arab Games.
