The 16 teams, hailing from all five of FIBA's Continental Zones, were divided into four groups of four teams for the first group stage, which will consist of a standard round-robin, to be played June 30 - July 2 in the cities of Liepaja and Valmiera.

Group A (Valmiera) - Brazil, Poland, Russia, Tunisia; Group B (Valmiera) - Argentina, Australia, Chinese Taipei, Latvia; Group C
(Liepaja) - Canada, Croatia, Lithuania, Korea; Group D (Liepaja) - China, Egypt, Serbia, USA.

The three top placed teams from each group will qualify to a second group stage, consisting of two groups of six which runs July 4-6. During the second group stage, each team will face the three new teams in their group.

The top four teams from the second group stage advance to the quarter-finals, which are scheduled for Friday  July 8. The semi-finals will be played on Saturday July 9 and the finals on Sunday July 10.

All second group stage and knock-out round games will take place at the Arena Riga.

The United States will be defending the gold medal they won in Auckland in 2009, where they went the entire Championship undefeated.

They overcame Greece in the final, while Croatia beat Australia in the bronze medal game.

Past editions of the FIBA U19 World Championship have seen a number of international stars in the making, including Andrew Bogut and Linas Kleiza in 2003, Andrei Kirilenko and Pau Gasol in 1999, Vincent Carter and Wang Zhizhi in 1995 and Dejan Bodiroga and Steve Nash in 1991.