The Poland men's national basketball team () represents Poland in international basketball competitions. They are controlled by the Polish Basketball Federation (PZKosz).
Poland has competed at the EuroBasket on 28 occasions, with their best performance at the tournament coming in 1963, as hosts, finishing as runners-up. Poland has competed six times at the Olympic Games, with their best finish being fourth place at the first edition of the event in 1936. Poland have also made two appearances at the FIBA World Cup, with their first coming in 1967, and their second occurring 52 years later in 2019.
History
1936 Olympic Games
The 1936 Summer Olympics was the first tournament Poland took part in. They eventually placed an impressive fourth at the event, in the then 23 team tournament.
EuroBasket 1937
The EuroBasket 1937 in Riga, marked the first ever appearance for the national team at the European Basketball Championship. In the preliminary round the Poles dropped their first match to France, but rebounded with victories against Latvia and Czechoslovakia. They finished with an 2–1 record, and moved on to the semi-finals where they played Lithuania. There they were defeated by the eventual champion Lithuanian squad 31–25, relegating them to the bronze medal match. For the bronze, the team was defeated again by France to end their maiden run at the Eurobasket.
EuroBasket 1939
Two years later at EuroBasket 1939 in Kaunas, the competition format was a single round-robin without playoffs. Latvia and Lithuania both defeated Poland whereas the other five teams in the competition fell to the Poles. With Lithuania undefeated and Poland and Latvia tied with a record of 5–2, the loss to Latvia was decisive in pushing Poland to third place and the bronze.
EuroBasket 1946
Due to World War II, the next European basketball championship was at EuroBasket 1946 in Geneva. The Poles started well, with a victory over Luxembourg. They then lost their next two preliminary round matches to Italy, and Hungary to finish in third place of the four-team group. That result put them in the 7th–10th place classification semi-final, where they lost again, this time to Belgium. In the 9th/10th place playoff, Poland defeated England.
EuroBasket 1947
The EuroBasket returned to the odd-year schedule with EuroBasket 1947 in Prague. Poland placed second in their preliminary group, losing only to eventual silver medallist Czechoslovakia en route to a 2–1 record. They then went 1–2 in their semi-final group, falling to the gold medal Soviet Union team and bronze medal Egypt. This put Poland in a 5th/6th place playoff against France, who had been 1–2 in the opposite semi-final group. France went on to win, 62–29.
EuroBasket 1955
After an 8-year hiatus, Poland returned at EuroBasket 1955 in Budapest. They quickly showed that they could still play with the European field, winning all four of their preliminary round games to advance to the final round. Despite their mediocre 3–4 record in that round, the Poles had demonstrated that they could be effective against the best of the European pool with a 72–68 win over eventual runners-up Czechoslovakia. They eventually finished 5th overall of the 18 teams in the tournament.
EuroBasket 1957
Two years later in Sofia, Poland competed at EuroBasket 1957. Despite being seeded into the same preliminary pool as the Soviet Union, the Poles went 2–1 in the round-robin and advanced to the final round. There they lost their first six of seven games in that round, getting their first win in the last game of the round, against France to finish the tournament in 7th place.
EuroBasket 1963
Five years later the national team hosted EuroBasket 1963 in Wroclaw. They got off to a fast start winning their first match against Spain 79–76. They fell to the Soviet Union in their next match. But, eventually ran the table the rest of the way in their preliminary round group to finish with an 6–1 record to advance. In the semi-finals the Poles defeated Yugoslavia, to get within a win of the gold medal. There they met up against the Soviet Union again, and were dominated 61–45 to instead take silver.
1964 Olympic Games
As vice champion of the EuroBasket, at the 1964 Summer Olympics, the Poles came off an impressive start as they finished 3rd out of 8 in the preliminary round. Overall, they finished 6th out of 16, ahead of SFR Yugoslavia, Uruguay and Mexico, which were all major players at the global stage at that time.