MIES (Switzerland) - Before teaming up for a US college championship with North Carolina and long successful NBA careers James Worthy and Sam Perkins helped United States claim the first FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup title in an iconic moment in FIBA's storied history.

The inaugural edition of the FIBA World Championship for Junior Men - as the competition was originally named - took place in Salvador, Brazil in 1979 and the Americans went undefeated to take the gold. The United States team featured future NBA stars Worthy and Perkins as well as Lafayette Lever and Eric "Sleepy" Floyd.

The tournament in northeastern Brazil had two group phases with the top three finishers of each of the two first round groups advancing to a six-team championship round. The teams then played the other three teams for final placing in the group and thereby the podium finishers.

The final game of the final round saw United States encounter Brazil in what essentially was the championship game as USA were 4-0 and Brazil 3-1 in the group. A standing-room crowd estimated at 11,000 tried to cheer Brazil on to the title.

The Americans grabbed an early advantage and led comfortably at the half, 41-22, and ended up wining 75-55 to take the gold medal. Floyd led the way with 17 points while Worthy added 12 points. Argentina defeated Italy 71-70 to finish third in the group and take home the bronze medal.

The junior competition was held every four years from 1979 to 2007 after which it was changed to a biennial event. The United States won three of the first four events - with Yugoslavia taking gold in 1987 with one of the most legendary teams - senior or youth - in FIBA history. Toni Kukoc, Vlade Divac and Dino Radja were the biggest later stars on the Yugoslavia side in Bormio, Italy, but the team also had Aleksander Djordjevic, Nebojsa Ilic, Luka Pavicevic, Slavisa Koprivica and Miroslav Pecarski and was coached by Svetislav Pesic.

In the six U19 World Cups between 1995 and 2011, six different countries won the title. The Americans hoisted the trophy for the fifth time in 2013 and repeated in 2015. An RJ Barrett-led Canada team shocked the Americans in the Semi-Finals in 2017 en route to the title and the country's biggest result in world basketball history. USA reclaimed the trophy in 2019 and captured an eighth gold in 15 editions in 2021.

 FIBA