By  Giannis Spiropoulos and Antonis Kremidas

Basketball is a game played between two teams of five players each on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent’s goal, an elevated horizontal hoop and net called a basket. While basketball is competitively a winter sport, it is played on a 12-month basis—on summer playgrounds, in municipal, industrial, and church halls, in school yards and family driveways, and in summer camps—often on an informal basis between two or more contestants. Many grammar schools, youth groups, municipal recreation centers, churches, and other organizations conduct basketball programs for youngsters of less than high school age.

Basketball in Greece is the most popular sport in the country. There are outdoors courts everywhere the people of all ages have fun throughout the year. At the professional club level, the Greece men’s basketball clubs have, in European-wide Cup competitions, organized under both FIBA and EuroLeague Basketball, won 19 European championships, 10 of which have been won in the 1st-tier level EuroLeague competition, as well as three world club championships at the FIBA Club World Cup, bringing the total amount of international titles won by Greek men’s clubs to 21. At the women’s professional club level, Athinaikos won the title of the 2nd-tier EuroCup, in 2010.