| Continent: | South America |
| Year: | 1940 |
| Host: | Uruguay |
| Dates: | 20-28 January |
| Teams: | 6 |
| Venues: | 1 |
| Cities: | 1 |
| Champions: | Uruguay |
| Title Number: | 3 |
| Prevseason: | 1939 |
| Nextseason: | 1941 |
The 1940 South American Basketball Championship was the 8th edition of this tournament. It was held in Montevideo, Uruguay and won by the host, Uruguay national basketball team. A record 6 teams competed, including Paraguay in their first appearance, despite the World War that was currently under way.
Each team played the other five teams once, for a total of five games played by each team and 15 overall in the tournament.
| width=20 | Rank | width=220 | Team | width=20 | Pts | width=20 | W | width=20 | L | width=20 | PF | width=20 | PA | width=20 | Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 192 | 101 | +91 | |||||||||
| 2 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 177 | 106 | +71 | |||||||||
| 3 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 135 | 156 | -21 | |||||||||
| 4 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 166 | 155 | +11 | |||||||||
| 5 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 149 | 146 | +3 | |||||||||
| 6 | 5 | 0 | 5 | 83 | 238 | -155 |
| width=25% | width=25% | width=25% | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uruguay | 25 - 23 | Argentina | |||
| Uruguay | 38 - 15 | Brazil | |||
| Uruguay | 43 - 26 | Chile | |||
| Uruguay | 25 - 24 | Peru | |||
| Uruguay | 61 - 13 | Paraguay | |||
| Argentina | 46 - 33 | Brazil | |||
| Argentina | 18 - 17 | Chile | |||
| Argentina | 40 - 26 | Peru | |||
| Argentina | 50 - 5 | Paraguay | |||
| Brazil | 36 - 31 | Chile | |||
| Brazil | 27 - 21 | Peru | |||
| Brazil | 24 - 20 | Paraguay | |||
| Chile | 35 - 32 | Peru | |||
| Chile | 57 - 26 | Paraguay | |||
| Peru | 46 - 19 | Paraguay |