As a result, the group stage games were played in four cities, and the knockout round was hosted by Istanbul.

The United States won the tournament for their fourth time after going undefeated in the Opening Round and beating host Turkey in the final.

[3] Three bids from six countries – France, Turkey, and a joint bid from former Yugoslav republics Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia – made their final presentation during the FIBA's 20-member Central Board in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 5 December 2004.

Most other teams secured their places in continental qualifying tournaments (three from Africa, three from Asia, two from Oceania, four from the Americas, and six from Europe).

As of 2009, FIBA now requires that wild card candidates pay a late registration fee to be considered.

FIBA then whittled down the teams to eight semifinalists – Cameroon, Germany, Great Britain, Korea, Lebanon, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Russia.

[12] On Saturday 12 December 2009, FIBA awarded Germany, Lebanon, Lithuania and Russia the four wild cards.

United States Argentina Spain Greece Serbia Slovenia France Turkey Brazil Puerto Rico Canada Australia Croatia Russia Lithuania Germany China Iran Lebanon Angola Jordan Tunisia New Zealand Ivory Coast At the start of tournament, all 24 participating countries had 12 players on their rosters.

The National Basketball Association, based in the U.S., has a Canadian team, and several minor leagues operate on both sides of the U.S.—Canada border.

Serbian center Nenad Krstić was arrested and held overnight for throwing a chair in the brawl.

The three African and four Asian teams struggled, with only Angola and China reaching the knockout stage after each finished fourth place in their group.

Defending champions Spain struggled early, losing two of their first three games before recovering to finish second in Group D. Argentina and the United States, the two top teams in the FIBA rankings, both cruised to the knockout phase, as the United States went 5–0 and Argentina went 4–1, with their only loss coming to Number 5 ranked Serbia.

Method of breaking ties: On 18 August 2010, FIBA named the forty referees that officiated at the tournament.

[citation needed] The U.S. TV ratings for the Final between the U.S. and Turkey, on the other hand, was watched by less than 900,000 viewers in American cable network ESPN, worse than the average audience of the broadcast of the 2009-10 NBA season, but double than the airing of the first game of the 2010 WNBA Finals on its sister terrestrial network ABC which was aired on the same timeslot.