Competition Format

Two ways exist for teams to qualify for the 2002 World Basketball Championship for Men. A country may qualify as the host country, as the United States will for the event. Another route is to qualify by finishing among the top teams in FIBA zone qualification tournaments.

The FIBA zones are broken down into five regional areas: Africa (consisting of 53 National Federations), Asia (consisting of 44 National Federations), Europe (consisting of 50 National Federations), Americas (consisting of 43 National Federations), and Oceania (consisting of 21 National Federations). The number of teams qualifying per zone tournament varies from zone to zone.

The following is a breakdown of the teams that qualified for the 1994, 1998 and 2002 World Basketball Championship for Men.

** In May 2000, FIBA’s Central Board voted to allow a fifth team to qualify from the Americas regional zone tournament and eliminated the automatic qualification for winning the gold medal from the previous Olympic Games.

The tournament format will feature a round-robin competition in preliminary round play Aug. 29-31, and the top three teams from each preliminary group advance to form two second round groups consisting of six teams each. Each team's results against teams advancing from its preliminary group will carry over to the second round standings. Each team then will play the other three teams in the second round group whom they have not faced in the preliminary round.

The second round, which will be contested Sept. 2-4, will feature the top three finishing teams from Group A and Group B forming one second round group, and the top three finishing teams in Group C and Group D forming the other second round group. The top four teams from those two groups will then advance on to the medal round quarterfinals Sept. 5, followed by the Sept. 7 semifinals and the gold and bronze medal games will be played on Sept. 8.