Portugal men's national basketball team

Portugal nearly joined the field of the first European Championship, but in the only qualification game held for the tournament the Portuguese lost 33–12 to the Spanish team in Madrid. The game was curiously referred by the Spanish coach Mariano Manent.

Portugal's European Championship debut was at EuroBasket 1951 in Paris. The national team got off to an rough start in their first two preliminary round matches, losing by huge margins to Greece and Bulgaria. Although, they did get an official win in Romania's forfeit to finish 1–2 and third place in the group.

In the first classification round, Portugal managed a win against Switzerland in a major upset, 51–49, but nevertheless finished in fourth and last place of the classification round group with a 1–2 record. They then lost to Denmark in the second round classification 13th–16th place game, but defeated Scotland in the 15th/16th place game to place 15th of the 18 teams.

Portugal qualified for their second EuroBasket (but first time through direct qualification) by finishing first in their qualification group, where they beat the likes of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Israel, who eventually booked the last place in the final tournament through an additional qualifying tournament.

In the preliminary round, Portugal lost its first two matches against Spain and Croatia by 56–82 and 68–90, respectively. Before the third and last match of its group, Portugal had to defeat Latvia by, at least, sixteen points; alternatively, a victory would suffice provided Croatia defeated the World champions, Spain, in their last match. Portugal won by only ten points, but since Croatia grabbed a surprising one-point victory, with a three-pointer in the last three seconds, Portugal qualified for the first time ever to the second round.

Portugal began this round playing against Russia, that had won all their games in its preliminary group. But, the Portuguese came up short losing 78-65. Israel was their next opponent and, like in the qualification, Portugal once again was victorious beating them (94–85), putting up their best performance in the tournament. This second victory revived Portugal's chances to reach the quarterfinals; a simple victory in the last match against the reigning EuroBasket 2005 champions and 2006 FIBA World Cup runners-up Greece would be enough, if Croatia defeated Russia (otherwise, Greece would have to lose by at least thirteen points). However, Greece displayed a consistent and stronger game, defeating the Portuguese 85-67 and ending their qualification hopes. Nevertheless, it was the best performance ever by the national team at this level, ensuring a top 10 finish at the European Championship.

After Portugal's surprising performance at their last EuroBasket in 2007 there was optimism within the national team heading into it this time around. After making it through the repechage tournament to qualify, Portugal was dealt with an tough task after being placed in Group A. Having to go up against Euro powerhouses in Spain and host nation Lithuania was going to be challenging. But Turkey, Poland, and Great Britain proved to be overwhelming as well. The national team eventually finished last in the Group, losing all 5 of its matches in the preliminary stage and failed to advance.

1951 EuroBasket: finished 15th among 18 teams

3 Mario Nogueira de Almeida, 4 Bernardo Candido Reis Leite, 5 Rui Duarte, 6 Avelino Da Conceicao do Carmo, 7 Maximo Jose Carvalho Simoes do Couto, 8 LenineVicente Ferreira dos Santos, 9 Jose Goncalves Belo de Oliveira 10 Antonio Nogueira Cardoso, 11 Cesar Nogueira Cardoso, 12 Domingos Dos Santos Diogo, 14 Jose Manual Antunes de Almeida, 15 Joao Manuel Morgado Coutinho, (Coach: ?)

2007 EuroBasket: finished 9th among 16 teams

4 Miguel Minhava, 5 Mário Gil Fernandes, 6 Sérgio Ramos, 7 Paulo Cunha, 8 Francisco Jordão, 9 Filipe da Silva, 10 João Gomes, 11 Jorge Coelho, 12 Paulo Simão, 13 Elvis Évora, 14 Miguel Miranda 15 João Santos, (Coach: Valentin Melnychuk)

2011 EuroBasket: finished 21st among 24 teams

4 António Tavares, 5 José Costa, 6 Miguel Minhava, 7 Fernando Sousa, 8 Cláudio Fonseca, 9 Filipe da Silva, 10 Carlos Andrade, 11 José Silva, 12 Elvis Évora, 13 Marco Goncalves, 14 Miguel Miranda, 15 João Santos, (Coach: Mário Palma)

2012: Reebok [3]

2012: Montepio [3]