Korać Cup (C3) is a European competition for men's clubs organized by FIBA on behalf of the Standing Conference of National Basketball Federations of Europe. C3 is open to those clubs that didn't qualify for SuproLeague (C1) or Saporta Cup (C2) in their domestic tournaments. Korać Cup—thus named in honor of Radivoj Korać, the best Yugoslavian basketball player of his time, who died in a car accident in 1969—is the most recent European competition (it was created in 1972) and also the one that gathers most teams. In 2002, after the creation of ULEB competitions and the re-shaping of European tournaments, Korać Cup disappeared.

The Permanent Conference for Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, held in Rovaniemi (Finland) in june 1971, agreed on the creation, in order to commemorate the XL anniversary of FIBA, of an experimental European competition named Radivoj Korać Cup (although during its first edition it was also called European Cup Paul Geist). This tournament would be offered by OKK Belgrade, club where Korać played, and all its revenues would be sent to the Yugoslavian Basketball Federation in order to create a Foundation bearing the name of this brilliant player. The first teams invited to participate in this brand new competition were from Spain (2), France (2), Yugoslavia (2), and Belgium (2), although later on one of the Belgians declined this invitation and was substituted by a German club. The first matches in the history of Korać Cup took place in February 4, 1972.

As well as the other two European tournaments organized by FIBA, the competition system of Korać Cup has undergone several changes through the years. During its last editions, a variable number of clubs played one or two elimination rounds so that only 32 entered a qualification round, where they were distributed in 8 groups of 4 teams each. Winners and runners-up accessed an 1/8 Final round; the survivors progressively advanced to 1/4 Finals, 1/2 Finals, and Final. Ever from its inception in 1972, the final is played as a double game: home and away (years 1977-1985 excepted).

NOTES

• Official FIBA scores and statistics extended and corrected with multilingual edition. Additional information sources: basketball magazines Rebote (1960) and Gigantes (1985-) and newspapers ABC (1902-), El Mundo Deportivo (1941-), Marca (1942-) and As (1967-). From 1985 on, when I started collecting my first statistics on paper, then with an Olivetti typewriter and finally using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS in an IBM computer (sweet old days...), scores and statistics are registered "on real time."