By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Spain and Serbia remain the top European national teams, placed directly under USA that understandably completely dominates the global ranking at no. 1.
France is fourth in the overall list while Lithuania fell to the 6th place. Slovenia climbed 5 spots after winning the EuroBasket and Croatia won is also up 3 positions.
Here are the complete FIBA Rankings in a list that includes 150 countries.
The related announcement by FIBA is as follows:
“The innovative game-based ranking factors in results from official games played by 153 national teams and will be updated after every window of Qualifiers and following the conclusion of top official FIBA competitions.
The new ranking is based on results of games ranging from regional pre-qualifiers all the way to the FIBA Basketball World Cup Final, and includes the Olympic Basketball Tournament as well as the Continental Cups. The previous ranking was purely competition-based and only took into account the final standings of tournaments.
The basic principle is simple: 1,000 basis points are awarded in each game, with the two teams earning a share of these according to the margin of victory or defeat. Weightings are added on a round basis meaning that, when a team progresses through a top official FIBA competition, its wins are worth more with every round it plays.
The ranking has revised weightings of the competitions. For the first time, it sees the implementation of a time decay rewarding teams for their most recent performances. This replaces the system in place under the previous ranking, where all games over the 8-year period received the exact same value.
Finally, the new ranking also recognizes the value of away wins and rewards facing and beating opponents that are higher in the ranking.
FIBA Secretary General and International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member Patrick Baumann said: “The new ranking was devised with our new calendar clearly in mind. We are pleased to offer more teams – 153 of them, compared to 91 previously – a ranking that can be updated after every window of the Qualifiers so that national teams, fans and their national federations can follow their progress on a more regular basis. Prior to the change, the rankings already proved to be among the most popular pages on FIBA.basketball and we expect there will be even more debating and conversations taking place following the implementation of this new one.”
For now, the new FIBA World Ranking Men, presented by Nike, only applies to senior men’s national teams and competitions. FIBA will work towards drawing up and implementing similar systems for the women’s and youth (boys and girls) rankings at a later stage.”