The Scotland national basketball team represents Scotland in international basketball competition. It is organised by basketballscotland, the sport's governing body in Scotland. Scotland joined FIBA in 1947; their direct affiliation to FIBA ended on 30 September 2016, after a transition period following the formation of the Great Britain national team in 2006.[1] The only active international competition the team can now participate in is the basketball tournament at the Commonwealth Games.
The Scottish team's first European championship competition was at EuroBasket 1951 in Paris. They lost their eight games and finished 16th place out of 18. They outranked Luxembourg, who had had the misfortune of being in a five-team preliminary group instead of a four-team group (and losing all of their games), and Romania, who had dropped out of the tournament at the last minute.[2]
Six years later, at the EuroBasket 1957 in Sofia, Scotland competed much better. There, the squad won one of its three preliminary round games to be relegated to the classification round. The first match in that round pitted Scotland against Albania, who had also not yet achieved a victory in EuroBasket competition. The Scots proved the better, 69–56. Afterwards, they lost their next six matches but showed considerable improvement from the last tournament. They competed against Austria and West Germany the whole game until they finally ceded by one point and five points respectively to finish the classification round 1–6 in 15th place overall, ahead of Albania which they beat twice.[3]
Robert Archibald is Scotland's most well known basketball player. Because of his accomplishments he became an inspirational figure to basketball players throughout his home country.
Robert was selected by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2002 NBA draft[5] with the third pick of the second round (32nd overall). Robert played a total of 44 NBA games across two seasons, before a successful career in Europe playing in the EuroLeague, Serie A and Liga ACB. Robert joined the Great Britain national team when it formed, winning the first of what would become 42 caps. He went on to represent Great Britain at EuroBasket 2009, EuroBasket 2011 and the 2012 Olympic Games.
Bill enjoyed a distinguished playing career with Boroughmuir in Edinburgh; he was a member of the team which dominated domestically in Scotland the 1960s and 1970s, and were British Rose Bowl champions in 1972. He also played on Boroughmuir teams that entered the FIBA European Champions Cup and FIBA European Cup Winners' Cup on five occasions in that time. He represented both Scotland and Great Britain on 176 occasions, starting all his 28 competitive GB games, and finishing as the leading scorer in eight of them. [6] He was the leading scorer in the 1968 European Pre-Olympic event with 119 points in seven games. He was the second top scorer in 3 other Olympic qualifying events, finishing with 354 points, for a 12.6ppg average. [7] Off the court, Bill was a founder member of Boroughmuir. Bill coached at all levels and was secretary to the club since 1961. He later served as Chair of the British Basketball Federation, was a member of the National Olympic Committee, Chair of the British Masters Basketball Association and was a director with Basketball Scotland, which he previously chaired from 1990 to 2008. He was awarded the FIBA Order of Merit posthumously after his death in 2017.
Kieron played college basketball at Duquesne University before turning professional in 2008 and embarking on a professional career at the highest levels in Italy, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Great Britain. He represented Scotland and Great Britain at national team level. He was the youngest player ever to play for the Scotland national team, featuring in the FIBA Europe Promotion Cup, and made his debut for Great Britain in 2008, shortly before turning professional.[8] Achara was a part of the British Basketball team which took part in the London 2012 Olympics.
England
Egypt
Kevin Cadle (1984 – 1990)