Basketball is a popular team sport within the Commonwealth and appears for the first time in a Commonwealth Games program in Melbourne 2006.

Two medals will be on offer after 10 days of competition which will begin at the regional centres of Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Traralgon, before concluding in classification matches and finals at the Multi-Purpose Venue (Melbourne Park).

Eight nations will compete in both the men's and women's events, with the competition consisting of two pools of four teams playing each other in a round-robin style tournament, before the two leading teams in each pool advance to the finals.