AP – USA Basketball is back atop the FIBA men’s world rankings, even after failing to medal at the World Cup.
The Americans flipped spots with Spain for number one in the world in the updated rankings that were released yesterday, reclaiming the top spot that they lost late last year. Spain is now number two, and World Cup champion Germany soared eight spots to number three on the world list – the best in that programme’s history.
It’s certainly possible now that the Americans will keep the top spot leading into the Paris Olympics, where the United States (US) will aim for a fifth consecutive gold medal. FIBA, the sport’s governing body, updates its rankings every few months; yesterday’s update was the first tweak to the men’s list since February. Spain had overtaken the US in November 2022, ending a 12-year run in the top spot for the Americans.
“The world is good at basketball,” US point guard Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks said as the World Cup was winding down. “Respect everybody.”
FIBA’s rankings were changed in 2017 to a system that only takes results from the most recent eight years into account. The Olympic golds from Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo factor into the current rankings, and obviously help after back-to-back failures to medal at the last two World Cups – the US was seventh at China in 2019 and fourth in Manila earlier this month, falling to Germany in the semifinals and Canada in the bronze-medal game.
Canada soared nine spots to number six in the world after winning that bronze, and Latvia – which made the quarter-finals of its first World Cup – climbed 22 spots to number eight.
The top 10 teams are the US, Spain, Germany, Australia (which slipped one spot to number four), World Cup silver medalist Serbia (which climbed one spot to number five), Canada, Argentina (down three spots to number seven after not even making the World Cup field), Latvia, France (down four spots to number nine) and Lithuania (down four spots to number 10).
The biggest climber in the rankings after the World Cup was South Sudan, which was number 63 in the world before the tournament and moved up 32 spots to number 31.
