At the 1976 Summer Olympics, Japan's Shigeaki Abe put up a noteworthy performance of 38 points and 10 assists against Puerto Rico.

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.

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.

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.

Suzuki, concurrently coaching the Aisin SeaHorses Mikawa had initial success as Team Nippon finished Runner-up at the next FIBA Asian Cup which was held in Tokyo in September 2012.

[5] 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.

[9] 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:[15] At the 2016 FIBA Asia Challenge.