Finland men's national basketball team explained

Country:	Finland
Nickname:	Susijengi (The Wolf Pack)
Coach:	Lassi Tuovi
Joined Fiba:	1939
Fiba Zone:	FIBA Europe
National Fed:	Basketball Finland
Oly Appearances:	2
Oly Medals:	None
Wc Appearances:	2
Wc Medals:	None
Zone Championship:	EuroBasket
Zone Appearances:	17
Zone Medals:	None
H Pattern B:	_bluesides_horizontal_line
H Body:	FFFFFF
H Shorts:	FFFFFF
H Pattern S:	_bluesides
A Pattern B:	_thinwhitesides
A Body:	0055A4
A Shorts:	0055A4
A Pattern S:	_whitesides
First Game:	76–11 (Kaunas, Lithuania; 22 May 1939)
Largest Win:	53–111 (Luxembourg City; 16 September 2006)
Largest Loss:	112–9 (Kaunas, Lithuania; 27 May 1939)

The Finland men's national basketball team (Finnish: Suomen koripallomaajoukkue, Swedish: Finlands herrlandslag i basket) represents Finland in international basketball competition. The national team is governed by Basketball Finland.

Finland has played in 17 EuroBasket tournaments, with their best finish coming in sixth place at EuroBasket 1967, on home soil. Finland has appeared at the Olympic Games twice, in 1952 as hosts, and 1964. Finland has also qualified for the FIBA World Cup twice, in 2014 and 2023.

Since 2011, Finland has had the highest FIBA World Ranking among Nordic countries.

History

Early years

The Finnish Basketball Association was founded in February 1939. A few months earlier the Finnish Football Federation had decided to add basketball to its own repertoire.Finland first competed at the European championship at its third installment, the EuroBasket 1939. In the round-robin, they initially struggled and lost to each of the other seven teams and finished with a 70–541 overall point differential.

1950s

Finland's next European competition was 12 years later, at the EuroBasket 1951 in Paris. Overall, they fared much better and split their four preliminary round games and finished at third place in the group at 2–2 but were eliminated from championship contention. They had success after that, winning all three of their classification round 1 games and both round 2 games to finish in 9th place of the 18 teams.

In 1952, by virtue of hosting the games in Helsinki, Finland played at the Summer Olympics for the first time. The national team finished at the bottom of Group B in the preliminary round losing all of its game to the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and Mexico, and failing to advance.^[1]

Finland used this international experience when they competed again at the EuroBasket 1953 in Moscow. In the preliminary round, they finished with 1 win and 3 losses for 4th place of the 5 teams in the group. They fared significantly better in the first classification round, winning 3 and losing only 1 to finish in the middle of a three-way tie in the group. They lost both the 9–12 and 11/12 classification games, however, taking 12th place of 17 overall.

At the next event, Finland had some difficulty in the preliminary round of EuroBasket 1955. They lost all three early games in Budapest and were relegated to the classification round. Once again, not faced with the world elite opponents anymore, the Fins shone in the classification round and won all four of the pool play games. They won their classification 9–12 match as well, but lost to France in the 9/10 final to finish 10th of 18 in the tournament.

In Sofia, at the EuroBasket 1957, the Finns finished third in their preliminary group after going 1–2. They moved to the 9–16 classification pool and won five games there with only one loss. They took 11th place overall in the tournament.

Modern era

At the EuroBasket 1995 in Greece, was Finland's first qualification to the top European basketball tournament since 1977. The national team did not fair too well at the event though. As they were routed in their first match against Russia 126–74, and ultimately led to them finishing with an 0–6 record (13th place) and were eliminated.

Finland qualified for the EuroBasket 2011. The tournament berth was the first for Finland in 16 years. There they finished third out of six teams in EuroBasket 2011 Group C and defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina 92–64 and Montenegro 71–65. This allowed them to they qualify for the EuroBasket 2011 Group F. In their first match they were easily defeated by Russia but afterwards they defeated Georgia, before losing to Slovenia in their final match of the tournament. Despite not making it to the best of 8 tournament, Finland ended up making it to their first ever FIBA World Cup as a wild card team alongside Greece, Turkey, and Brazil.

Competitive record

FIBA World Cup

World Cup					Qualification
Year	Position	width=30		width=30		width=30		width=30	width=30	width=30
1950	Did not qualify	5	2	3
1954	EuroBasket served as qualifiers
1959
1963
1967
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986	Did not enter				Did not enter
1990	Did not qualify	EuroBasket served as qualifiers
1994
1998
2002
2006
2010
2014	22nd	5	1	4	Wild card
2019	Did not qualify				12	6	6
2023	21st	5	2	3	12	9	3
2027	To be determined				To be determined
Total	2/19	10	3	7	29	17	12

Olympic Games

Olympic Games					Qualifying
Year	Position	width=30		width=30		width=30		width=30	width=30	width=30
1948	Did not enter
1952	9th	3	0	3
1956	Did not qualify
1960	Did not enter				Did not enter
1964	11th	9	4	5	8	7	1
1968	Did not qualify	9	4	5
1972	7	2	5
1976	5	1	4
1980	4	1	3
1984	3	1	2
1988	4	2	2
1992	Did not enter				Did not enter
1996	Did not qualify	Did not qualify
2000
2004
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024	3	1	2
2028	To be determined				To be determined
Total	2/20	12	4	8	43	19	24

EuroBasket

EuroBasket					Qualification
Year	Position	width=30		width=30		width=30		width=30	width=30	width=30
1939	8th	7	0	7
1946	Did not enter
1947
1949
1951	9th	9	7	2
1953	12th	10	4	6
1955	10th	9	5	4
1957	11th	10	6	4
1959	13th	7	2	5
1961	14th	7	3	4
1963	14th	9	2	7	Direct qualification
1965	12th	9	3	6
1967	6th	9	6	3	Qualified as host
1969	Did not qualify	4	0	4
1971	4	1	3
1973	7	2	5
1975	Did not enter				Did not enter
1977	10th	7	1	6	5	3	2
1979	Did not qualify	10	3	7
1981	5	2	3
1983	12	2	10
1985	12	4	8
1987	12	3	9
1989	9	3	6
1991	3	0	3
1993	4	2	2
1995	14th	6	0	6	12	9	3
1997	Did not qualify	10	3	7
1999	3	2	1
2001	16	10	6
2003	6	3	3
2005	Division B				6	3	3
2007	Division B				10	8	2
2009	Did not qualify				12	5	7
2011	9th	8	3	5	12	5	7
2013	9th	8	5	3	8	6	2
2015	16th	6	2	4	Direct qualification
2017	11th	6	4	2
2022	7th	7	4	3	6	3	3
2025	Qualified as co-host				In progress
2029	To be determined				To be determined
Total	18/40	134	57	77	188	82	106

Participated in other competitions

FIBA Stanković Continental Champions' Cup

(2018)

Adecco Cup

(2015)

Friendship Games

(1984)

Results and fixtures

2025

Team

Current roster

Roster for the 2024 Olympic Qualifying Tournament.^[2]

Notable players

Current notable players from Finland who have recently played for the national team:

Past rosters

1939 EuroBasket

finished 8th among 8 teams

3 Martti Salminen, 4 Kalevi Ihalainen, 5 Ilkka Törrönen, 6 Erkki Saurala, 8 Pentti Vuollekoski, 9 Pauli Sarkkula, 10 Heinonen, 11 Erkki Lindén, 12 Vladi Marmo, 13 Reino Valtonen, 14 Alo Suurna (Coach: Alois Suurna)----1951 EuroBasket

finished 9th among 17 teams

3 Oiva Virtanen, 4 Raimo Lindholm, 5 Juhani Kyöstilä, 6 Timo Suviranta, 7 Pentti Laaksonen, 8 Raine Nuutinen, 9 Kalevi Sylander, 11 Arto Koivisto, 12 Pertti Mutru, 13 Kalevi Heinänen, 14 Kaj Gustafsson, 15 Olli Arppe, 16 Allan Pietarinen, 17 Tapio Pöyhönen (Coach: Eino Ojanen)----1952 Olympic Games

finished 15th among 23 teams

3 Juhani Kyöstilä, 4 Raine Nuutinen, 5 Raimo Lindholm, 6 Timo Suviranta, 7 Kalevi Heinänen, 8 Pentti Laaksonen, 9 Oiva Virtanen, 10 Esko Karhunen, 11 Eero Salonen, 12 Pertti Mutru, 13 Tapio Pöyhönen (Coach: Matti Simola)----1953 EuroBasket

finished 12th among 17 teams

3 Timo Lampen, 4 Raine Nuutinen, 5 Raimo Lindholm, 6 Timo Suviranta, 7 Keijo Hynninen, 8 Kalevi Heinänen, 9 Pentti Laaksonen, 10 Oiva Virtanen, 11 Eero Salonen, 12 Kaj Gustafsson, 13 Pertti Mutru, 14 Allan Pietarinen (Coach: Eino Ojanen)----1955 EuroBasket

finished 10th among 18 teams

3 Timo Lampén, 4 Raine Nuutinen, 5 Raimo Lindholm, 6 Timo Suviranta, 7 Kalevi Heinänen, 8 Oiva Virtanen, 9 Eero Salonen, 10 Kalevi Sylander, 11 Taisto Ravantti, 12 Seppo Kuusela, 13 Asko Jokinen, 14 Pertti Mutru, 15 Kalevi Tuominen (Coach: Eino Ojanen)----1957 EuroBasket

finished 11th among 16 teams

3 Timo Lampén, 4 Raine Nuutinen, 5 Raimo Lindholm, 6 Timo Suviranta, 7 Arvo Jantunen, 8 Paavo Suhonen, 9 Juhani Kala, 10 Seppo Kuusela, 11 Kalevi Sylander, 12 Eero Salonen, 13 Pertti Mutru, 14 Arto Koivisto (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1959 EuroBasket

finished 13th among 17 teams

3 Matti Köli, 4 Timo Lampén, 5 Pentti Palkoaho, 6 Matti Nenonen, 7 Raine Nuutinen, 8 Raimo Lindholm, 9 Arvo Jantunen, 10 Kyösti Rousti, 11 Juhani Kala, 12 Seppo Kuusela, 13 Eero Salonen, 14 Raimo Vartia (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1961 EuroBasket

finished 14th among 19 teams

4 Uolevi Manninen, 5 Kari Liimo, 6 Timo Lampén, 7 Pertti Laanti, 8 Lauri Nurma, 9 Martti Liimo, 10 Tony Bärlund, 11 Raimo Lindholm, 12 Rauno Ailus, 13 Arvo Jantunen, 14 Seppo Kuusela, 15 Raimo Vartia (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1963 EuroBasket

finished 14th among 16 teams

4 Uolevi Manninen, 5 Kari Liimo, 6 Timo Lampén, 7 Pertti Laanti, 8 Martti Liimo, 9 Juha Harjula, 10 Antero Siljola, 11 Rauno Ailus, 12 Kauko Kauppinen, 13 Jorma Pilkevaara, 14 Seppo Kuusela, 15 Raimo Vartia (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1964 Olympic Games

finished 11th among 16 teams

4 Uolevi Manninen, 5 Kari Liimo, 6 Timo Lampén, 7 Pertti Laanti, 8 Martti Liimo, 9 Raimo Lindholm, 10 Juha Harjula, 11 Risto Kala, 12 Kauko Kauppinen, 13 Jorma Pilkevaara, 14 Teijo Finneman, 15 Raimo Vartia (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1965 EuroBasket

finished 12th among 16 teams

4 Uolevi Manninen, 5 Kari Liimo, 6 Timo Lampén, 7 Pertti Laanti, 8 Martti Liimo, 9 Kari Lahti, 10 Hannu Paananen, 11 Jorma Pilkevaara, 12 Kari Rönnholm, 13 Lars Karell, 14 Teijo Finneman, 15 Jyrki Immonen (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1967 EuroBasket

finished 6th among 16 teams

4 Veikko Vainio, 5 Kari Liimo, 6 Uolevi Manninen, 7 Pertti Laanti, 8 Martti Liimo, 9 Kari Lahti, 10 Kari Rönnholm, 11 Lars Karell, 12 Jorma Pilkevaara, 13 Olavi Ahonen, 14 Teijo Finneman, 15 Jyrki Immonen (Coach: Kalevi Tuominen)----1977 EuroBasket

finished 10th among 12 teams

4 Kalevi Sarkalahti 5 Heikki Kasko, 6 Tapio Sten, 7 Heikki Taponen, 8 Antti Zitting, 9 Risto Lignell, 10 Raimo Mäntynen, 11 Anssi Rauramo, 12 Mikko Koskinen, 13 Klaus Mahlamäki, 14 Jarmo Laitinen, 15 Erkki Saaristo (Coach: Robert Petersen)----1995 EuroBasket

finished 13th among 14 teams

4 Martti Kuisma, 5 Hanno Möttölä, 6 Pekka Markkanen, 7 Sakari Pehkonen, 8 Jarkko Tuomala, 9 Markku Larkio, 10 Riku Marttinen, 11 Mika-Matti Tahvanainen, 12 Juha Luhtanen, 13 Jyri Lehtonen, 14 Kari-Pekka Klinga, 15 Petri-Mikael Niiranen (Coach: Henrik Dettmann)----2011 EuroBasket

finished 9th among 24 teams

4 Mikko Koivisto, 5 Antti Nikkilä, 6 Kimmo Muurinen, 7 Shawn Huff, 8 Gerald Lee, 9 Sasu Salin, 10 Tuukka Kotti, 11 Petteri Koponen,
12 Vesa Mäkäläinen, 13 Hanno Möttölä (C), 14 Petri Virtanen, 15 Teemu Rannikko (Coach: Henrik Dettmann) ----2013 EuroBasket