The 1993 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1993, was the 28th FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA Europe. It was held in Germany between 22 June and 4 July 1993. Sixteen national teams entered the event under the auspices of FIBA Europe, the sport's regional governing body. The cities of Berlin, Karlsruhe and Munich hosted the tournament. Hosts Germany won their first FIBA European title by defeating Russia with a 71âÂÂ70 score in the final. Germany's Chris Welp was voted the tournament's MVP. This edition of the FIBA EuroBasket tournament also served as qualification for the 1994 FIBA World Championship, giving a berth to the top five teams in the final standings.
The tournament was originally planned for 12 teams. However, after the qualifying round was concluded, FIBA Europe decided to expand it to 16 teams. The main reason for this decision were political changes in Eastern Europe - both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had disintegrated. Teams from these two countries had completely dominated competitions in European basketball up to that point. Yugoslavia was the title holder but was banned from all international sport competitions as a result of sanctions against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Russia was announced as the successor to the Soviet Union team and competed as an independent country at a major tournament for the first time. Since teams from new sovereign nations, including 1992 Olympics silver medalist Croatia and bronze medalist Lithuania did not have the opportunity to compete in the qualifying round, FIBA Europe organized an additional qualifying tournament in order to provide some of these teams a chance to participate at the championship. The additional tournament was held in Wrocà Âaw, Poland a month before Eurobasket.