The 1997 Tournament of the Americas, later known as the FIBA Americas Championship and the FIBA AmeriCup, was a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

championship hosted by

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

from 21 to 31, August 1997. The games were played in

Montevideo Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...

. This

FIBA AmeriCup The FIBA AmeriCup (previously known as the FIBA Americas Championship) is the Americas Basketball Championship that takes place every four years between national teams of the Western Hemisphere continents. Since FIBA organised the entire West ...

was to earn the four berths allocated to the Americas for the

1998 FIBA World Championship The 1998 FIBA World Championship was the 13th FIBA World Championship, an international basketball tournament held by the International Basketball Federation and hosted in Greece from 29 July to 9 August 1998. The tournament was contested by 16 ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

won the tournament, the country's third AmeriCup championship.

Qualification

Eight teams qualified during the qualification tournaments held in their respective zones in 1997; two teams (USA and Canada) qualified automatically since they are the only members of the North America zone. * North America: , * Caribbean and Central America:, , , * South America: , , , The draw split the tournament into two groups: Group A

Group B

Format

* The top four teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals. * Results and standings among teams within the same group are carried over. * The top four teams at the quarterfinals were granted berths in the

. Since the United States were already qualified as Olympic Champions, should they reach one of the top four places in the quarterfinals, the fifth team on the final standings was given the remaining berth. * The top four teams then played an extra match to define the first six places in the final standings (1 vs. 2 for first place, 3 vs. 4 for third place and 5 vs. 6 for fifth place).

Squads

Preliminary round

Group A

Group B

Quarterfinal group

The top four teams in both Group A and Group B advanced to the quarterfinal group. Then each team played the four from the other group once to complete a full round robin. Records from the preliminary groups carried over. The top two teams advanced to the first place game and the third and fourth-place teams advanced to the third place game. The fifth-place team (Cuba) and the sixth-place team (Canada) did not continue competing for the Americas Championship, but played a further game against each other, with the winner qualifying for the

Final round

Fifth place game

Third place game

First place game

Awards

Final standings

External links

1997 Championship of the Americas for Men
FIBA.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Americas FIBA AmeriCup 1997 in Uruguayan sport International basketball competitions hosted by Puerto Rico 1997–98 in North American basketball 1997–98 in South American basketball