Poland national basketball team

The Poland men's national basketball team ( pl, Reprezentacja Polski w koszykówce) represents Poland in international basketball competitions. They are controlled by the Polish Basketball Federation (PZKosz).

Poland has competed at the EuroBasket on 28 occasions, with their best performance at the tournament coming in 1963, as hosts, finishing as runners-up. Poland has competed six times at the Olympic Games, with their best finish being fourth place at the first edition of the event in 1936. Poland have also made two appearances at the FIBA World Cup, with their first coming in 1967, and their second occurring 52 years later in 2019.

History

1936 Olympic Games

The 1936 Summer Olympics was the first tournament Poland took part in. They eventually placed an impressive fourth at the event, in the then 23 team tournament.

EuroBasket 1937

The EuroBasket 1937 in Riga, marked the first ever appearance for the national team at the European Basketball Championship. In the preliminary round the Poles dropped their first match to France, but rebounded with victories against Latvia and Czechoslovakia. They finished with an 2–1 record, and moved on to the semi-finals where they played Lithuanaia. There they were defeated by the eventual champion Lithuanian squad 31–25, relegating them to the bronze medal match. For the bronze, the team was defeated again by France to end their maiden run at the Eurobasket.

EuroBasket 1939

Two years later at EuroBasket 1939 in Kaunas, the competition format was a single round-robin without playoffs. Latvia and Lithuania both defeated Poland whereas the other five teams in the competition fell to the Poles. With Lithuania undefeated and Poland and Latvia tied with a record of 5–2, the loss to Latvia was decisive in pushing Poland to third place and the bronze.

EuroBasket 1946

Due to World War II, the next European basketball championship was at EuroBasket 1946 in Geneva. The Poles started well, with a victory over Luxembourg. They then lost their next two preliminary round matches to Italy, and Hungary to finish in third place of the four-team group. That result put them in the 7th–10th place classification semi-final, where they lost again, this time to Belgium. In the 9th/10th place playoff, Poland defeated England.

EuroBasket 1947

The EuroBasket returned to the odd-year schedule with EuroBasket 1947 in Prague. Poland placed second in their preliminary group, losing only to eventual silver medallist Czechoslovakia en route to a 2–1 record. They then went 1–2 in their semi-final group, falling to the gold medal Soviet Union team and bronze medal Egypt. This put Poland in a 5th/6th place playoff against France, who had been 1–2 in the opposite semi-final group. France went on to win, 62–29.

EuroBasket 1955

After an 8-year hiatus, Poland returned at EuroBasket 1955 in Budapest. They quickly showed that they could still play with the European field, winning all four of their preliminary round games to advance to the final round. Despite their mediocre 3–4 record in that round, the Poles had demonstrated that they could be effective against the best of the European pool with a 72–68 win over eventual runners-up Czechoslovakia. They eventually finished 5th overall of the 18 teams in the tournament.

EuroBasket 1957

Two years later in Sofia, Poland competed at EuroBasket 1957. Despite being seeded into the same preliminary pool as the Soviet Union, the Poles went 2–1 in the round-robin and advanced to the final round. There they lost their first six of seven games in that round, getting their first win in the last game of the round, against France to finish the tournament in 7th place.

EuroBasket 1963

Five years later the national team hosted EuroBasket 1963 in Wroclaw. They got off to a fast start winning their first match against Spain 79–76. They fell to the Soviet Union in their next match. But, eventually ran the table the rest of the way in their preliminary round group to finish with an 6–1 record to advance. In the semi-finals the Poles defeated Yugoslavia, to get within a win of the gold medal. There they met up against the Soviet Union again, and were dominated 61–45 to instead take silver.

1964 Olympic Games

As vice champion of the EuroBasket, at the 1964 Summer Olympics, the Poles came off an impressive start as they finished 3rd out of 8 in the preliminary round. Overall, they finished 6th out of 16, ahead of SFR Yugoslavia, Uruguay and Mexico, which were all major players at the global stage at that time.

1967 World Cup

The 1967 World Cup was the first appearance for the national team to compete at the global tournament. The team finished 2–1 in their preliminary group, with victories against Paraguay and Puerto Rico to advance to the final round. There they finished their first ever trip to the World Cup with an subpar 2–4 record, placing 5th in the event.

1968 Olympic Games

Just like at the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the Poles finished the preliminary round at the 1968 event in Mexico City with a winning record. Overall, they finished 6th out of 16. Just like at the EuroBasket 1967, Poland won against Bulgaria for its closest victory of the tournament.

Seventh Heaven (1987-1997)

From 1987 to 1997, the national team only managed to qualify for the European Basketball Championship three times out of a possible six. They finished in seventh place in each tournament in 1987, 1991, and 1997. Although after 1997 Poland would fail to qualify for the top European basketball event for the next decade.

The 10-year span

After years of failed qualifications, Poland finally made their way back to the EuroBasket at the 2007 tournament. It was quite an unexpected achievement for the Poles. But, overall they did not make much noise. Because of injury, many key players including Michał Ignerski and Maciej Lampe did not compete at the event. The Poles lost all 3 games, but even in defeat they remained competitive losing by only 8 to a well-regarded French team and by 9 to the Italian squad.

EuroBasket 2009

The White and Red hosted the EuroBasket 2009, making it the first time the national team qualified for consecutive EuroBasket tournaments since the mid 1980s. They got off to an impressive start putting away Bulgaria in the first game 90–78. The team followed that up with another strong performance versus Lithuania 86–75, before dropping their final game in preliminary play against Turkey. With an 2–1 record the team was able to advance to the second round. There, the team came up short in group play with an 1–4 record and a 9th place finish overall at the event.

Later years (2009-2019)

After 2009, the national team qualified for every EuroBasket in the 2010s. But they could only manage to finish in the top half of the tournament once, that being in 2015.

2019 World Cup

In 2019, the national team qualified for the World Cup. It was their first qualification to a global event since 1980 Olympics in Moscow. During the 2019 FIBA World Cup, Poland was put into a group with group favourite China, Ivory Coast, and Venezuela. After a convincing win over Venezuela, Poland upset the hosts 79-76 in front of a max-capacity crowd in Beijing. Poland was down 72-69 with 15 seconds left before Chinese NBA center Zhou Qi made 2 straight turnovers allowing Poland to send the game into overtime. Aaron Cel made a driving layup to put Poland up 78-76 and the upset was sealed when Yi Jianlian missed the game-tying shot. Poland finished 3-0 in their group and moved onto the next round, where they defeated Russia 79-74 before losing to Argentina. In the quarterfinals they faced eventual champions Spain and narrowly lost 90-78, eventually finishing the tournament in 8th place.

EuroBasket 2022

At the EuroBasket 2022 qualification, Jeremy Sochan became the youngest player to ever play for Poland's national team. In his very first game, he led Poland over Romania 88-81. He played 29 minutes in which he scored 18 points, including a four-point play (3 pointer plus foul and free throw) at the end and a game-deciding block.
The Orly played in Group D held in Prague. Poland started off with a win over co-host Czech Republic by 99-84. But in thrir second match, they fell back to Finland by 89-59. They later went back strong with their second win over Israel by 85-76. They won in their fourth match against the Netherlands 69-75. But in the fifth and final preliminary match, lost to Serbia by 96-69. in the knockout stage, they start their Final Phase campaign in the Round of 16 with a win over Ukraine by 86-94. in the quarter-finals, they beat Slovenia by 87-90. But in the semi-finals they were unable to catch up and lost to France by 54-95. In the third place match, Poland fell behind to co-host Germany and lost by 69-82. Poland finished fourth in the final standings, it became Poland's strong finish for the first time since 1967.

EuroBasket 2025

Poland will co-host the EuroBasket 2025 after being able to step in for Ukraine. Poland is cuurently playing in the pre-qualifiers despie already earned an automatic qualification as co-host.

Competitive record

FIBA World Cup

Olympic Games

EuroBasket

Results and fixtures

2021

2022

2023

Team

Current roster

Roster for the EuroBasket 2025 Pre-Qualifiers matches on 10 and 13 November 2022 against Switzerland and Croatia.

Depth chart

Head coach history

Past rosters

1936 Olympic Games: finished 4th among 21 teams

1 Zdzisław Filipkiewicz, 2 Florian Grzechowiak, 3 Zdzisław Kasprzak, 4 Jakub Kopf, 5 Ewaryst Łój, 6 Janusz Patrzykont, 7 Andrzej Pluciński, 8 Zenon Różycki, 9 Paweł Stok, 10 Edward Szostak (Coach: Walenty Kłyszejko)
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1937 EuroBasket: finished 4th among 8 teams

3 Michał Czajczyk, 4 Stefan Gendera, 5 Florian Grzechowiak, 6 Zdzisław Kasprzak, 7 Janusz Patrzykont, 8 Andrzej Pluciński, 9 Zbigniew Resich, 10 Zenon Różycki, 11 Jarosław Śmigielski, 12 Paweł Stok (Coach: Walenty Kłyszejko)
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1939 EuroBasket: finished 3rd among 8 teams

4 Jerzy Gregołajtis, 5 Bohdan Bartosiewicz, 6 Jarosław Śmigielski, 7 Zbigniew Resich, 8 Florian Grzechowiak, 9 Stanisław Pawłowski, 10 Paweł Stok, 11 Jerzy Rossudowski, 12 Zdzislaw Kasprzak, 13 Ewaryst Loj, 14 Włodzimierz Pławczyk (Coach: Walenty Kłyszejko)
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1946 EuroBasket: finished 9th among 10 teams

3 Zbigniew Resich, 4 Rościsław Iwanow-Ruszkiewicz, 5 Jacek Arlet, 6 Jarosław Śmigielski, 7 Franciszek Szymura, 8 Florian Grzechowiak, 9 Edward Jarczyński, 10 Paweł Stok, 12 Zdzisław Kasprzak, 14 Władysław Maleszewski (Coach: Józef Pachla)
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1947 EuroBasket: finished 6th among 14 teams

3 Józef Żyliński, 4 Ludwik Barszczewski, 5 Bohdan Bartosiewicz, 6 Jacek Arlet, 7 Jerzy Dowgird, 8 Edward Jarczyński, 9 Henryk Jaźnicki, 10 Paweł Stok, 11 Romuald Markowski, 12 Zbigniew Resich, 13 Tadeusz Ulatowski, 14 Władysław Maleszewski (Coach: Józef Pachla)
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1955 EuroBasket: finished 5th among 18 teams

3 Leszek Kamiński, 4 Witold Zagórski, 5 Wincent Wawro, 6 Jerzy Sterenga, 7 Mieczysław Feglerski, 8 Jerzy Mlynarczyk, 9 Bohdan Przywarski, 10 Sławomir Złotkiewicz, 11 Jędrzej Bednarowicz, 12 Stefan Wojcik, 13 Andrzej Nartowski, 14 Tadeusz Pacuła, 16 Władysław Pawlak, 17 Ryszard Olszewski (Coach: Władysław Maleszewski)
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1957 EuroBasket: finished 7th among 16 teams

3 Wincent Wawro, 4 Janusz Wichowski, 5 Andrzej Pstrokoński, 6 Andrzej Nartowski, 7 Mieczysław Feglerski, 8 Ryszard Olszewski, 9 Krzysztof Sitkowski, 10 Władysław Pawlak, 11 Jerzy Młynarczyk, 12 Stefan Wojcik, 13 Zdzisław Skrzeczkowski, 14 Tadeusz Pacuła (Coach: Władysław Maleszewski)
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1959 EuroBasket: finished 6th among 17 teams

3 Jerzy Piskun