The fourth European Basketball Championship of Men ( official: Euro Basket 1946 ) was held in from April 30 to May 4, 1946 Geneva instead. Czechoslovakia became European champions . Silver went to Italy and Hungary won the bronze medal. Even if the states of Eastern Europe were occupied by the USSR, they continued their bourgeois prewar tradition in 1946 and thus paved the way for the USSR to enter international sports traffic.
The preliminary round was held in three groups with once four or twice three teams. The winner of a game received two points, the loser one point. If a game was tied at the end of regular time, there was extra time.
The first place in each group as well as the second place in large group A were set to participate in the games for the European championship title and were already fourth in the European Championship. The runners-up in small groups B and C then had to contest a game for fifth place in the European Championship, while the remaining teams played the European Championship places 7 to 10 among themselves.
After the preliminary round, the third and fourth placed in group A met against the two third placed in groups B and C in the small semifinals. The winners played for EM place 7, the losers for EM place 9.
After the preliminary round, the first and second place finishers in Group A faced the two first place finishers in Groups B and C in the semifinals. The winners played in the final for the European championship title, the losers in the game for third place for the bronze medal.
↑ Winiarska, Dorota: Civil sport in the GDR and Poland. 1945 - 1989. Relics of bourgeois sports culture in the former Eastern Bloc countries using the example of the People's Republic of Poland and the German Democratic Republic. Hamburg: Kovač 2005. ISBN 3-8300-1937-8
^ Arnd Krüger : The Unfinished Symphony. A History of the Olympic Games from Coubertin to Samaranch, in: James Riordan , Arnd Krüger (Ed.): The International Politics of Sport in the 20th Century. London: Routledge 1999, 3-27.