The 1958 FIBA European Champions Cup was the inaugural season of the European top-tier level professional

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 ...

club competition FIBA European Champions Cup (now called EuroLeague). It was won by

Rīgas ASK Rīgas Armijas Sporta Klubs was a professional basketball club that was based in Riga, Latvia. History Rīgas ASK was founded in 1931, and started playing in the Latvian Basketball Championship. In the years that Latvia was controlled by the Sovi ...

, after they won both

EuroLeague Finals The EuroLeague Finals are the championship finals of the EuroLeague competition. The EuroLeague is the highest level tier, and most important professional club basketball competition in Europe. Title holders * ......1958 Rīgas ASK * 1958� ...

games against

Academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

. Previously, they had not played the semifinals, as

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

was not allowed to travel to

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

by the

Francoist Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...

authorities. The first game was held on February 22, 1958, in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, where

Belgian League The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 team ...

champion Royal IV, defeated the Luxembourger League champions,

Etzella Ettelbruck Foussballclub Etzella Ettelbréck, abbreviated to either FC Etzella or Etzella Ettelbruck, is a football club, based in Ettelbruck, in north-eastern Luxembourg. History In the 2005–06 season, Etzella finished third in the National Division, ...

, by a score of 82–43.February 22, 1958: The day it all started
/ref> The most notable contributors to Riga's first title included

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

Jānis Krūmiņš Jānis Krūmiņš (30 January 1930 – 20 November 1994) was a Soviet- Latvian professional basketball player. Helped by his height (about 220 cm, or 7'3"), he was the first giant center that dominated under European baskets, for years. As ...

and

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

Alexander Gomelsky Alexander Yakovlevich Gomelsky (russian: Александр Яковлевич Гомельский; 18 January 1928 – 16 August 2005) was a Russian professional basketball player and coach. The Father of Soviet and Russian basketball, he was i ...

Competition system

23 teams. European national domestic league champions only, playing in a tournament system. The Finals were a two-game home and away aggregate.

Preliminary round

Group A (Northeast Europe)

Group B (Central Europe)

First round

*Series decided over one game played in Switzerland.

Second round

The winners of the three pairs in Group B played against each other, in a tournament held in Milan, in order to determine the two clubs that would progress to the Quarterfinals

Group C (Southeast Europe)

First round

*Union Beirut withdrew

Second round

Third round

Group D (Southwest Europe)

First round

Second round

Quarterfinals

*The result of the game between the two clubs in the tournament of the 1st Round's Group B was used as a result for the 1st leg.

Semifinals

*Real Madrid withdrew as they were not allowed to travel to 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 ...

.Champions Cup 1958
/ref>

Finals

Awards

FIBA European Champions Cup Finals Top Scorer

(

)

References

External links

1958 FIBA European Champions Cup

1958 EuroLeague Retrospective and Stats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fiba European Champions Cup 1958 1957–58 in European basketball

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...