| Type: | Olympics |
| City: | Melbourne |
| Year: | 1956 |
| Games: | 1956 Summer Olympics |
| Host: | Australia |
| Dates: | November 22 – December 1 |
| Men Teams: | 15 |
| Men Gold: | USA |
| Men Silver: | URS |
| Men Bronze: | URU |
| Prev: | Helsinki 1952 |
| Next: | Rome 1960 |
Basketball at the 1956 Summer Olympics was the fourth appearance of the sport of basketball as an official Olympic medal event. Fifteen nations, an unusually low number for the basketball tournament, competed in the event, with 174 participants. A total number of 56 games of basketball were played.
The teams were divided into four pools, with four teams in three of the pools and only three in the fourth. Every team played against each other team in its pool once. The top two teams from each pool advanced to the quarterfinals, where again they were split into pools of four. Teams again played every other team in their pool, with the top two in each advancing to the semifinal and the bottom two entering a pool for 5th through 8th places. Eliminated teams also played in consolation matches with the same structure as the quarterfinals and finals, but for 9th through 15th places.The games were held at the Royal Exhibition Building.
| Outright qualifier, World Champion | ||
| Outright qualifier, World Runner-up | ||
| Outright qualifier, World Bronze medalists | ||
| Host nation |
| Teams Participating by Region | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Americas | Europe | Asia | Africa | Oceania |
| No team participated | ||||
| — | ||||
| — | — | |||
| Region | Automatic | From the previous World Cup | Berth as Host nation | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 4 | N/A | N/A | 4 | |
| Americas | 2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| Asia | 5 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Africa | No team participated | 0 | |||
| Oceania | N/A | 1 | 1 | ||
| TOTAL | 11 | 3 | 1 | 15 | |
For the team rosters see: Basketball at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's team rosters.
| width=10px bgcolor="ccffcc" | Advance to the semifinals | ||
| width=10px bgcolor="ffffbb" | Relegated to the 5th-8th classification |
| width=40 | Pos | width=180 | Team | width=60 | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8−0 | |||||
| 5−3 | |||||
| 6−2 | |||||
| 4th | 5−3 | ||||
| 5th | 5−3 | ||||
| 6th | 3−4 | ||||
| 7th | 4−4 | ||||
| 8th | 2–5 | ||||
| 9th | 5–2 | ||||
| 10th | 3–4 | ||||
| 11th | 5−3 | ||||
| 12th | 2–5 | ||||
| 13th | 2–5 | ||||
| 14th | 1–6 | ||||
| 15th | 0–7 |