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 ...

at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

was the twelfth appearance of the sport of basketball as an official Olympic medal event. It took place at the

Jamsil Gymnasium Jamsil Arena (), also known as Jamsil Indoor Stadium, is an indoor sporting arena. It is part of Seoul Sports Complex, located in Seoul, South Korea. The capacity of the arena is 11,069 for basketball and was built from December 1976 to April 19 ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

from 17 September to 30 September 1988. 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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

won the gold medal in the women's competition, repeating their performance from the 1984 tournament. In the men's tournament, the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

took home their second gold medal in the team's history for this event. In the team,

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

basketballers were overrepresented: Sabonis, Chomičius, Kurtinaitis and Marčiulionis were Lithuanian, Miglinieks was Latvian, and Kaj Sokk was Estonian. This was the last Olympic basketball tournament where

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

players were not allowed to participate; FIBA voted in a rule change in 1989 that lifted that restriction, leading to the dominance of 1992's

Dream Team Dream Team may refer to: Sport Basketball * Dream Team, the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team in Barcelona * Dream Team II, the 1994 U.S. men's national basketball team at the FIBA World Championship * Dream Team III, the 1996 ...

Medalists

Qualification

A NOC could enter one men's team with 12 players and one women's team with 12 players. For both tournaments, automatic qualifications were granted to the host country and the winners from the previous edition. For the men's tournament, the remaining teams were decided by the continental championships in Asia, Oceania, Africa and Americas and European qualifying tournament. Champions of Asia and Oceania, top two teams from Africa and top three from Americas earned direct qualification. The last three berths were allocated from the European qualifying tournament, held in the Netherlands, two months before Olympics tournament. For the women's tournament, qualification was decided by a tournament held in

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Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, where the top six teams earned a spot.

Men

Women

Format

Men's tournament: * Two groups of six teams are formed, where the top four from each group advance to the knockout stage. * Fifth and sixth places from each group form an additional bracket to decide 9th–12th places in the final ranking. * In the quarterfinals, the match ups are as follows: A1 vs. B4, A2 vs. B3, A3 vs. B2 and A4 vs. B1. ** The four teams eliminated from the quarterfinals form an additional bracket to decide 5th–8th places in the final ranking. * The winning teams from the quarterfinals meet in the semifinals as follows: A1/B4 vs. A3/B2 and A2/B3 vs. A4/B1. * The winning teams from the semifinals contest the gold medal. The losing teams contest the bronze. Women's tournament: * Two groups of four teams are formed, where the top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. * Third and fourth places from each group form an additional bracket to decide 5th–8th places in the final ranking. * In the semifinals, the match ups are as follows: A1 vs. B2, A2 vs. B1. * The winning teams from the semifinals contest the gold medal. The losing teams contest the bronze. Tie-breaking criteria: # Head to head results #

Goal average A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to a purpose or ai ...

(not the goal difference) between the tied teams # Goal average of the tied teams for all teams in its group

Men's tournament

Preliminary round

The top four places in each of the preliminary round groups advanced to the eight team, single-elimination knockout stage, where Group A teams would meet Group B teams. Hosts Korea couldn't advance, finishing at the bottom of their group. The other Asia representative, China, met the same fate, together with the two African teams, Egypt and Central African Republic.

Group A

Group B

Knockout stage

Championship bracket

Women's tournament

Preliminary round

The first two places in each of the preliminary round groups advanced to the semifinals, where Group A teams would meet Group B teams. Like their male counterparts, the Korea women's team didn't manage to advance to the knockout stage and ended up battling for 5th place against the other Asian representative, China and two of the European teams, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.

Group A

Group B

Knockout stage

Championship bracket

Final standings

References

Official Olympic Report

''FIBA Archive''

''FIBA Archive'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Olympics

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

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 ...

1988 in basketball International basketball competitions hosted by South Korea