The Japan men's national basketball team, also known as Akatsuki Japan () represents Japan in international basketball competitions, and is administered by the Japan Basketball Association (JBA), (Japanese: 日本バスケットボール協会, Nihon Basukettobōru Kyōkai). Japan became a FIBA member in 1936, and has one of Asia's longest basketball traditions.
Japan is one of the most successful basketball teams in Asia. It has won the FIBA Asia Cup twice and is the second leading nation in qualifications to the event. On the global stage, Japan has qualified for the FIBA World Cup six times and competed at the Olympic Games on eight occasions.
History The beginning (1917–1936)
Japan's national team had its first international tournament at the 3rd Far Eastern Games held in Tokyo in 1917, at which Japan was represented by the team of the Kyoto YMCA.
Later, the team was a founding member of the Olympics Basketball competition in Berlin 1936.
Establishment as a competitor at the global stage (1937–1976) After 1936, Japan Henceforth, they participated almost every time until 1976. Team Japan was a regular at world tournaments. It had its debut at the FIBA World Championship in 1963. It was the top team in Asia, as it won the championship there in 1965 and 1971.
At the 1976 Summer Olympics, Japan's Shigeaki Abe put up a noteworthy performance of 38 points and 10 assists against Puerto Rico.
Continued success (1995–1998)
As runner-up at the Fukuoka Universiade in 1995, Team Nippon (as the Japanese are also called) had a streak of success and qualified for the 1998 FIBA World Championship, its first qualification in over 30 years. Coached by the Croat Željko Pavličević, the team played well but did not make it out of the primary round, where it lost its fourth-place battle against former semi-finalist New Zealand.
Competition from the Middle East intensifies (1999–2009) In the late 1990s, Japan played against more intense competition from the Middle East. Combined with many player absences from the team, Team Nippon struggled to win medals at the Asian Championships since its silver medal in 1997. At the 2008 event in their home country (Tokushima), the team finished at the 8th position and missed qualification for both the Beijing Olympic Tournament and qualification to the 2010 FIBA World Championship. At the 2009 FIBA Asia tournament the team sank to No. 10 position, its worst performance. This was partly due to the change of the head coach just before the tournament.
Recovery (2010–present)
Overshadowed by the drawbacks at international competitions, Japan brought forth several of Asia's elite basketball players who competed in the NBA and in Europe. These players included Yuta Tabuse, J.R. Sakuragi, Takuya Kawamura, Takumi Ishizaki and others. However, they rarely played for the national team, which caused Team Japan to fall behind Asia's elite competition from Iran, South Korea, the Philippines and China.
To better the results, the American coach Thomas Wisman took over the management of the team in 2010 and made some considerable improvements. Wisman just came off a phenomenal year in the Japanese Basketball League (JBL) where he had led Tochigi Brex to its first and only national title. At the FIBA Asia Stankovic Cup in 2010, Team Nippon was defeated by host Lebanon but exceeded expectations as it finished as runner-up. At the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship, the listed goal of the Final Four was missed as the team reached the 7th position out of 15. The team managed to defeat finalists Jordan but then lost to South Korea in the first playoff round and was defeated.
In March 2012, the Japan Association dismissed Wissmann and the country's coaching legend Kimikazu Suzuki took over the reins of the team. Suzuki, concurrently coaching the Aisin SeaHorses Mikawa had initial success as Team Nippon finished Runner-up at the next FIBA Asia Challenge tournament, which was held in Tokyo in September 2012. Aimed at the acquisition of a 2014 FIBA World Cup berth, the team, however, finished the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship in 9th place.
After Japan's missed opportunity to reach the World Cup, Team Nippon entered the 2015 FIBA Asia Championship, with the return of Yuta Tabuse and several other top players from the national team. They would win two of their three preliminary round games, to eventually make it all the way to the semi-finals of the competition for the first time since 1997. Although they would ultimately fall short in the round against the Philippines, and subsequently losing the third place game to Iran.
Two years later, Japan failed to make it into the quarter-finals at the 2017 FIBA Asia Cup, being defeated by South Korea in the qualification to the round. Following the event, Japan entered Asian Qualifiers for the 2019 FIBA World Cup, where they would amass an (8–5) record during their qualifying campaign to reach the finals. At the competition, Japan endured a disappointing tournament, losing all three of their group phase games, as well as their two classification matches to finish (0–5) to be eliminated.
Japan co-hosted the 2023 FIBA World Cup along with the Philippines and Indonesia. After losing their first game of the group phase against the eventually champions Germany, Akatsuki Japan obtained their first ever victory against a European opponent Finland 98–88. Following the historic win, Japan lost their final group game versus Australia, and sent to the classification round before exiting the tournament.
Japan played at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and were allocated in Group B. In the first game, they lost to Germany. In the second game, Japan was close to an upset win against hosts France, conceding the game only after overtime. Yuki Kawamura followed Kevin Durant and Luol Deng as the third player in Olympic history to have more than 25+ points, 5+ rebounds and 5+ assists. They were eliminated after losing to Brazil on the final gameday.
Competitive record Olympic Games YearPositionTournamentHost 1936 9 Basketball at the 1936 Summer Olympics Berlin, Germany 1956 10 Basketball at the 1956 Summer Olympics Melbourne, Australia 1960 15 Basketball at the 1960 Summer Olympics Rome, Italy 1964 10 Basketball at the 1964 Summer Olympics Tokyo, Japan 1972 14 Basketball at the 1972 Summer Olympics Munich, West Germany 1976 11 Basketball at the 1976 Summer Olympics Montreal, Canada 2020 11 Basketball at the 2020 Summer Olympics Tokyo, Japan 2024 11 Basketball at the 2024 Summer Olympics Paris, France
FIBA World Cup FIBA World Cup recordYearPosition 1950No qualification for Asia 1954Did not qualify 1959 1963Preliminary round 8 1 7 1967Classification round 8 2 6 1970Did not qualify 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998Classification round 5 1 4 2002Did not qualify 2006Preliminary round 5 1 4 2010Did not qualify 2014 2019Preliminary round 5 0 5 2023Classification round 5 3 2 2027To be determined 2031Total6/19 36 8 28
FIBA Asia Cup FIBA Asia Cup recordYearPositionPFPAPD 19603rd place954 1963Did not enter 1965Champions981 19673rd place972 1969Runners-up871 1971Champions880 19734th place1064 1975Runners-up871 19773rd place972 1979Runners-up871 19813rd place752 1983Runners-up752 19855th place651 19873rd place862 19894th place743 19913rd place853 19937th place633 19953rd place972 1997Runners-up743 19995th place752 20016th place624 20036th place734 20055th place853 20078th place844 200910th place835 20117th place954 20139th place734 20154th place954 20179th place422 20227th place532480392+88 20259th place422344306+38Total30/3122514877
Asian Games Asian GamesYearPosition 1951Runners-up 4 3 1 19543rd place 6 3 3 19583rd place 7 6 1 1962Runners-up 8 7 1 19664th place 6 4 2 19703rd place 8 5 3 19747th place 7 4 3 19784th place 8 5 3 19823rd place 7 5 2 19866th place 7 2 5 19904th place 7 3 4 19943rd place 5 3 2 199810th place 5 2 3 20026th place 6 2 4 20066th place 8 4 4 20104th place 8 5 3 20143rd place 7 4 3 20187th place 6 3 3 20228th place 6 3 3 2026Runners-up 6 4 2Total19/191327755
East Asian Games East Asian GamesYearPosition 19935th place 19975th place 20013rd place 2005Runners-up 20093rd place 20134th placeTotal6/6---
Team Current roster Roster for the 2025 FIBA Asia Cup.
Head coaches
Past rosters 1936 Olympic Games: finished 13th among 21 teams
Riichi Cho, T.Nakae, S.Ri, K.Yokoyama, T.Kanakogi, M.Maeda, U.Munakata, S.Matsui
1956 Olympic Games: finished 10th among 15 teams
Setsuo Nara, Jose Rodriguez, Kenichi Imaizumi, Hiroshi Saito, Reizo Ohira, Hitoshi Konno, Takashi Itoyama, Manabu Fujita, Takeo Sugiyama, Tetsuro Noborisaka, Riichi Arai (Coach: M.Maeda)
1960 Olympic Games: finished 15th among 16 teams
Setsuo Nara, Shutaro Shoji, Hiroshi Saito, Takashi Itoyama, Takeo Sugiyama, Kenichi Imaizumi, Yasukuni Oshima, Shoji Kamata, Masashi Shiga, Takashi Masuda, Kaoru Wakabayashi, Hideo Kanekawa (Coach: M.Maeda)
1963 World Championship: finished 13th among 13 teams
Setsuo Nara, Takashi Masuda, Masashi Shiga, Yasukuni Oshima, Kaoru Wakabayashi, Keizo Okayama, Isamu Yamaguchi, Yoshikuni Awano, Fumihiko Moroyama, Katsuji Tsunoda, Kunihiko Nakamura, Yoshitaka Egawa (Coach: Shiro Yoshii)
1964 Olympic Games: finished 10th among 16 teams
Takashi Masuda, Setsuo Nara, Masashi Shiga, Kaoru Wakabayashi, Fumihiko Moroyama, Katsuji Tsunoda, Kunihiko Nakamura, Yoshitaka Egawa, Nobuo Kaiho, Akira Kodama, Katsuo Bai, Seiji Fujie (Coach: Marco Antonio de Venetis)
1967 World Championship: finished 11th among 13 teams
Kaoru Wakabayashi, Fumihiko Moroyama, Kunihiko Nakamura, Yoshitaka Egawa, Akira Kodama, Masatomo Taniguchi, Nobuo Hattori, Kenji Soda, Masahiko Yoshida, Isao Kimura, Seiji Igarashi (Coach: Shutaro Shoji)
1972 Olympic Games: finished 14th among 16 teams
Kenji Soda, Masatomo Taniguchi, Nobuo Hattori, Kunihiko Yokoyama, Atsushi Somamoto, Hirofumi Numata, Shigeaki Abe, Mineo Yoshikawa, Kazufumi Sakai, Nobuo Chigusa, Satoshi Mori, Katsuhiko Sugita (Coach: S.Kasahara)
1976 Olympic Games: finished 11th among 12 teams
Hirofumi Numata, Shigeaki Abe, Satoshi Mori, Norihiko Kitahara, Hideki Hamaguchi, Kiyohide Kuwata, Koji Yamamoto, Yutaka Fujimoto, Shigeto Shimizu, Fumio Saito, Nobuo Chigusa, Shoji Yuki (Coach: Masahiko Yoshida)
1998 World Championship: finished 14th among 16 teams
Kenichi Sako, Maikeru Takahashi, Akifumi Yamasaki, Hiroshi Nagano, Makoto Hasegawa, Takehiko Orimo, Satoshi Sakumoto, Hiroyuki Tominaga, Takahiro Setsumasa, Makoto Minamiyama, Takeshi Yuki, Satoru Furuta (Coach: Mototaka Kohama)
2006 World Championship: finished 20th among 24 teams
Takehiko Orimo, Satoru Furuta, Takahiro Setsumasa, Shunsuke Ito, Joji Takeuchi, Kei Igarashi, Shinsuke Kashiwagi, Daiji Yamada, Ryota Sakurai, Kosuke Takeuchi, Takuya Kawamura, Tomoo Amino (Coach: Zeljko Pavlicevic)
Roster for the 2016 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournaments:
At the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge.Japan – FIBA Asia Challenge 2016, FIBA.COM. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
Roster for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup.
Kit Manufacturer 2015–2019 : Under Armour2015 FIBA Asia Championship – Japan, FIBA.com. Retrieved 27 September 2015. 2021–2022 : Nike, Inc.
2022–present : Jordan Brand
Sponsor 2015: Xebio 2016: Sportsnavi live 2017–present: SoftBankFiba Asia Cup 2017, FIBA.com. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
See also Japan women's national basketball team Japan men's national under-19 basketball team Japan men's national under-17 basketball team Japan men's national 3x3 team
References
External links
FIBA profile Japan Basketball Records at FIBA Archive
Videos Japan – Highlights – 2015 FIBA Asia Championship YouTube.com video Japan Offense Highlights – FIBA Asia Cup 2017 YouTube.com video