9 ORGANISATION OF BASKETBALL AROUND THE WORLD The founding nations were: Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, and Switzerland; The United States joined the federation only two years later. Teams are divided in Conferences and Divisions according to their geographical position: the Western Conference includes Northwest, Pacific, and Southwest Divisions; the Eastern Conference includes Atlantic, Central, and Southeast divisions. Who was Larry O Brien and when did the trophy get this name? The FIBA The F d ration Internationale de Basketball, or FIBA, was founded in Geneva in 1932 by eight national basketball federations . Today, the FIBA counts 215 nations, and, for organisational reasons, it is divided in five areas, each covering one continent. The FIBA is the only basketball authority allowed to establish the rules and regulations regarding the international qualifying competitions to advance to the Olympic Games. In 1989, the FIBA admitted professional players to compete in the Olympic Games. Since then, NBA players have represented the United States in international competitions; the national basketball team who took part in the 1992 Olympic Games and won the gold medal was nicknamed The Dream Team . College basketball Non-professional college basketball is still very popular in the USA. Every year in March, teams belonging to the NCAA Division I compete in a tournament, known as March Madness, to determine the men s college basketball team national champion. College basketball also provides players for the NBA teams. Every year, the NBA selects players from college teams in an event called the NBA draft . Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan were two of the most famous players in the Dream Team. Professional basketball in the USA Basketball is the second most popular sport in the US after American football, and the NBA is the largest men s professional basketball league in the world. The NBA includes 30 teams, twentynine from the USA and one from Canada. Teams are equally divided in two conferences: the Western and the Eastern Conference; each conference is further divided into three Divisions . Each team plays eighty-two games in a regular season of a championship, which lasts from October to April. At the end of the season, eight teams from each conference compete in the play-offs: the winner is awarded the Larry O Brien Championship Trophy . 22 Italian basketball championships The Italian national basketball federation is the FIP, or Federazione Italiana Pallacanestro. The premier league championship is the Serie A one, managed by the Lega Basket (LBA) by delegation from the FIP, which is the only professional championship. The lower series, A2, B, C and Divisione Regionale 1, 2, 3, 4 are non-professional.