The 1960 United States men's Olympic basketball team competed in the Games of the XVII Olympiad in

Rome, Italy Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, representing the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

. The USA team, coached by

California Golden Bears The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Berkeley. Referred to in athletic competition as ''California'' or ''Cal'', the university fields 30 varsity athletic programs and various club te ...

head coach Pete Newell, dominated the competition, winning its games by an average of 42.4 points per game. The team is considered by many to be the best

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

level

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 (appro ...

team of all time, and was elected to the

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pre ...

as a unit, in 2010.

Roster

Olympic trials

Trials for the team were held in March and April 1960, in

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, at the Denver Coliseum. The trials were conducted in the form of an eight team tournament, including teams from the reigning NCAA National Champions, the

Ohio State Buckeyes The Ohio State Buckeyes are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio State University, located in Columbus, Ohio. The athletic programs are named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and after the state tree, ...

, a team of

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

All-Stars featuring stars such as

Jerry West Jerry Alan West (May 28, 1938 – June 12, 2024) was an American basketball player and executive. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and is widely regarded as one of the greatest ...

and

Oscar Robertson Oscar Palmer Robertson (born November 24, 1938), nicknamed "the Big O", is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Robertson played ...

, an NAIA All-Star team, and the AAU Champions, the Peoria Caterpillar Cats. The NCAA All-Stars won the competition convincingly, and so Pete Newell was named the team's head coach, with Warren Womble as his assistant. The trials came at a time when the AAU and NCAA were wrestling for control of

USA Basketball USA Basketball (USAB) is a non-profit organization and the governing body for basketball in the United States. The organization represents the United States in FIBA, and the men's and women's national basketball teams in the United States ...

, and the make-up of the team represented that uneasy truce, as the team was made up of seven collegiate stars, four AAU players, and one representative of the

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(guard Adrian Smith). This compromise meant that many top college players were left off the team, including Ohio State's

John Havlicek John Joseph Havlicek (often nicknamed Hondo) ( ; April 8, 1940 – April 25, 2019) was an American professional basketball player who spent his entire career with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A swingman, Hav ...

and Providence guard

Lenny Wilkens Leonard Randolph Wilkens (born October 28, 1937) is an American former professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has been inducted three times into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, fi ...

Olympic tournament

The team went 8–0 in the Olympic basketball tournament, held in

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, averaging 101.9 points per game and holding their opponents to 59.5. Five Americans averaged double-figures in scoring - Oscar Robertson (17.3),

Jerry Lucas Jerry Ray Lucas (born March 30, 1940) is an American former basketball player. He was a nationally awarded high school player, national college star at Ohio State University, and 1960 Olympic medal, gold medal Olympian and international player be ...

(16.8), Jerry West (14.1),

Terry Dischinger Terry Gilbert Dischinger ( ; November 21, 1940 – October 9, 2023) was an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Dischinger was a three-time NBA All-Star and the 1963 NBA Rookie of the Year, after ...

(11.3) and Adrian Smith (10.9). Lucas was the star of the medal round, as he scored 21 points in the gold medal game against

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, after having scored 26 points in the previous game against host

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Results

* USA 88,

54 *USA 125,

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66 *USA 107,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

63 *USA 104,

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42 *USA 108,

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of 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 the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

50 *USA 81,

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57 *USA 112,

81 *USA 90,

Legacy

The 1960 team is thought to be one of the best

amateur sports Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sports, professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time t ...

teams in basketball history. Nine members of the squad went on to play in the

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

and four players from the team – Robertson, Lucas, West and

Walt Bellamy Walter Jones Bellamy (July 24, 1939 – November 2, 2013) was an American professional basketball player. He played 14 seasons as a center in the National Basketball Association, playing for four different teams. As a star for Indiana University ...

– have individually been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as have head coach Pete Newell and Dutch Lonborg, who was on Newell's staff as team manager. Other career distinctions by team members include Robertson's League MVP Award in 1963–64. Dischinger's 1963

NBA Rookie of the Year Award The National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the top rookie(s) of the regular season. Initiated following the 1952–53 NBA season, it confers the Eddie Gottlieb Tr ...

(an award also received by Robertson (1961), Bellamy (1962), and Lucas(1964), Adrian Smith's

NBA All-Star Game MVP The NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player (MVP) is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the player(s) voted best of the annual All-Star Game. The award was established in 1953 when NBA officials decided to ...

in 1966, and West's NBA Finals MVP in 1969. Eight members were later selected to at least one NBA All-Star Game ( Bob Boozer, Darrall Imhoff and Adrian Smith were NBA All-Star Game participants during their careers. In total, there were 43 future All-Star berths amongst the teammates. The team was elected to the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984. In 2010, along with the "Dream Team," the 1960 US Olympic men's basketball team was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a unit. The election marks only the seventh and eighth teams so honored.Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Announces Class of 2010
Retrieved on April 11, 2010.

References

External links

Team profile at USA Basketball official siteUS Olympic Hall of Fame Class of 1984 page
{{Basketball Hall of Fame

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

United States at the Olympic men's basketball tournament Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees olympic