Overview
Basketball was considered one of the most dominant sports within Ukraine athletics during the early 1990s when it first became popular and it remains that way today. Before Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainian players played on the Soviet Union national team for international competitions. The Soviets were one of the strongest national teams in the world during this time period. After Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the national team then joined the FIBA (International Basketball Federation or Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur) in 1992. The men’s national team then began representing Ukraine in international basketball competitions while being controlled by the Basketball Federation of Ukraine. They competed in their first official game against England on May 30th, 1993. Their biggest success so far on the international stage has been qualifying for the EuroBasket nine times and reaching the FIBA World Cup for the first time in 2014.
Notable Years
EuroBasket 1997: Ukraine made their EuroBasket debut in 1997. They had a rough first game as they were destroyed by Spain 82-54. They then went on to play two more games of group play in which they lost to Germany 81-60 then beat Croatia 95-88 which gave them their first ever win at the EuroBasket. The teams 1-2 performance was not good enough to advance to the knockout stage, as they were put in the classification rounds for 13th-16th place. Here, they beat Latvia and Slovenia to finish the tournament 13th overall.
EuroBasket 2013: Ukraine was placed into Group A to begin their tournament run. They won their first three games of the tournament beating Belgium, Israel, and Germany. Following their first three wins, they lost to France 77-71 who ended up being the tournament champions. In the last game of the preliminary phase, Ukraine blew out Great Britain 87-68 helping them advance to the second group phase. In this phase they went 1-2 by beating Serbia while losing to Latvia and Lithuania which was enough to clinch a spot into the knockout rounds. Ukraine ended up losing to Croatia in the quarter-finals by a score of 84-72 and finished in 6th place overall. It was the best result for Ukraine at the EuroBasket to that point.
2014 FIBA World Cup: Ukraine made their first appearance on to the global stage at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, through their surprising performance at EuroBasket in 2013. The national team won their first ever match in the World Cup, defeating the Dominican Republic 72-62. Following this win, they lost to Finland by five before beating Turkey by six. With a berth into the round of 16 on the line, Ukraine needed one more victory to advance but they were unsuccessful when they lost to the predicted favorite United States 95-71 which eliminated them from the tournament.
EuroBasket 2017: After failing to make it out of the group stage in 2015, Ukraine hoped to show improvement on the big stage at EuroBasket 2017. Ukraine unfortunately lost their first two games to Germany and Italy, however went on to win their third game against Georgia 88-81. Later on, Ukraine ended up losing to Lithuania 94-62 before beating Israel 88-64 to advance to the next round. Entering the round of 16, however, was where Ukraine came up short by getting destroyed by the eventual champions of the tournament Slovenia 79-55.
2019 FIBA World Cup qualification: The national team opened up their qualifying campaign with a solid road win against Sweden 84-76. They eventually went on to attain a 3–3 record in the first group phase to advance to the second and final phase of qualifying. In the second group phase of qualifiers, Ukraine began with a strong home win against Spain. Unfortunately, the team lost their second game of group play to Montenegro 90–84 to fall to 1–1. After that loss for Ukraine, they ended up finishing the rest of the qualifiers with a record of 5–7 overall and were eliminated from World Cup contention.
