Prior to Croatian independence Croatia played its first unofficial friendly game on 2 June 1964 in
Karlovac. Croatian team played against US
All Star Team and lost 65–110 (31–50). USA players coached by
Red Auerbach were
Bob Cousy,
Tom Heinsohn,
K. C. Jones,
Jerry Lucas,
Bob Pettit,
Oscar Robertson and
Bill Russell and Croatian team was
Giuseppe Gjergja,
Nemanja Đurić, Živko Kasun, Zlatko Kiseljak, Slobodan Kolaković,
Dragan Kovačić, Boris Križan, Stjepan Ledić,
Mirko Novosel,
Marko Ostarčević,
Petar Skansi and Željko Troskot.
Independent Croatia After independence of
Croatia in 1991, the first official tournament played by Croatians were the
1992 Summer Olympics in
Barcelona. Croatia defeated the
CIS team 75–74 and reached the final against the
USA Dream Team led by
Michael Jordan. The USA won 85–117, but Croatia won its first medal at a major tournament in history. The next competition for Croatia was the
1993 EuroBasket in Germany. Tragically, before the tournament
Dražen Petrović died in a car accident on 7 June 1993 at the age of 28. Croatia still managed to reach the bronze medal game to defeat
Greece 99–59. Croatia earned its third medal at the
1994 FIBA World Cup in Canada. Croatia lost their semi-finals match against
Russia 64–66, but beat Greece once again 78–60 for the bronze medal. A similar occurrence happened at the
EuroBasket 1995 in Greece. Croatia lost in the semi-finals 80–90 against
Lithuania, but beat Greece 73–68 for the third time in a row in a bronze medal match. That medal to date was the last Croatian medal from any major tournament. At the
1996 Summer Olympics Croatia finished in a subpar seventh place.
Decline At the
EuroBasket 1997 in Spain, the new Croatian generation emerged, but ended in 11th place. Croatia failed to qualify for the
2000,
2004,
2012,
2020,
2024 Summer Olympics, but finished sixth at the
2008 and fifth at the
2016. Croatia also failed to qualify for the
1998,
2002,
2006,
2019 and
2023. They also failed to qualify for their first ever
Eurobasket in
2025. Although the team did manage to qualify in
2010, before falling in the Round of 16. However, at the
EuroBasket 2013, Croatia had its best tournament appearance since 1995, where the team finished in fourth place. ==Honours==