Румыния ұлттық баскетбол құрамасы

Men's national basketball team representing Romania
the men's team

The Romania men's national basketball team (Echipa națională de baschet a României) represents Romania in international basketball competition. The team is administered by the Romanian Basketball Federation (FRB). Romania has qualified for the EuroBasket 18 times throughout their history. Their best tournament results occurred in 1957 and 1967 respectively, where they finished fifth. The national team has also appeared at the Olympic Games once, in 1952. However, Romania has yet to clinch qualification for their first trip to the FIBA World Cup.

At the first European Championship in Geneva, the Romania national team finished in last place in the then ten team tournament. Losing all three of their matches; 42 9 to Switzerland, 66 23 to France, and 24 17 to Hungary.

Romania returned to the European championship twelve years later in Prague, for the EuroBasket 1947. Romania finished with a record of 1 2 after the preliminary round, which eliminated them from championship contention but they earned their first ever EuroBasket victory against the Netherlands. The Romanians added two more in the classification semifinal, as they defeated Austria and Albania. This put them in a classification match against Italy for 9th and 10th place, which Romania lost 55 39. The national team thus placed tenth again, but this time they had outranked four teams to do so, due to the expansion of the tournament to 14.

The Romanian national team entered the EuroBasket 1951 in Paris, but withdrew before any games were played, so official records gave them three preliminary round losses, each with a score of 2 0.

Romania managed to qualify for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where the national team finished 23rd. It was the first and only time they qualified for the Olympic Basketball Tournament.

The EuroBasket 1953 in Moscow was the next European tournament in which the Romanians actually played. They finished in 3rd place in their preliminary round group with a 1 2 record and advanced to the classification rounds. They won 3 of their 4 games there, finishing in a three way tie for the top spot of the group. They lost out on the tiebreaker though and were relegated to the 13th 16th place semifinals. Winning that game and their next, the Romanians finished in 13th place of the 17 teams in the tournament.

Romania was much more successful two years later, at the EuroBasket 1955 in Budapest. A preliminary round loss to the global power house Soviet Union mattered little, as the national team won their other three preliminary matches against Sweden, Switzerland and Luxembourg to take second place in the group behind the Soviets to advance to the final round. There, they won games against Poland and Yugoslavia to finish 2 5 in the final round to take 7th place in the 18 team tournament.

Romania came within a single point of winning their preliminary pool at EuroBasket 1957 in Sofia, losing to Hungary in the narrow match. They beat their other two opponents Belgium and Finland to finish in second place in the pool to advance into the final round. There, they matched up again with Hungary, but the game wasn't as close as the Hungarians cruised to a 76 61 victory. The national team also lost to the other three pool winners, to finish with a 3 4 record to end the tournament in 5th place.

The team repeated its most successful campaign at the EuroBasket 1967 when it finished 5th again. The following years, the team had some successful performances but after 1987, it ceded completely from Europe's elite events. After 30 years of absence, Romania returned to the EuroBasket in 2017 when the country gained hosting rights alongside Finland, Israel and Turkey. However, the national team ended its participation with five losses in its five games played.

After defeating both Slovakia and Cyprus twice, the Tricolorii advanced to the final qualification round where they came short of their second EuroBasket qualification since 1987. The team was coached by Tudor Costescu.

Roster for the 2027 FIBA World Cup Pre Qualifiers match on 22 February 2024 against Luxembourg.