Admin August 15, 2024
After winning a fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal, the United States men’s national team remains atop the FIBA World Rankings.
While things remain the same at the top spot, there is plenty of movement throughout the latest rankings. Most notably, Serbia and France moved up after podium finishes at the Paris Games. Canada also jumped into the top five despite coming up short in the Olympic quarterfinals.
Among the biggest post-Olympic fallers are Australia, which saw its tournament end in heartbreak, and Spain, which failed to qualify for the knockout stage due to its point differential in group play.
The biggest riser in the top 30 is South Sudan, which put the world on notice with its performances against Puerto Rico, Team USA and Serbia at the Olympics. The program jumped 11 spots to No. 23, fitting recognition for a program on the rise.
As noteworthy as the Olympics were, there is more to FIBA’s rankings than where each country placed in Paris. The Sporting News gets you up to date with the latest world basketball rankings and catches you up to speed on how these rankings are calculated.
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Latest FIBA Basketball rankings
| World Rank | Country | Move |
| 1. | USA | — |
| 2. | Serbia | +2 |
| 3. | Germany | — |
| 4. | France | +5 |
| 5. | Canada | +2 |
| 6. | Spain | -4 |
| 7. | Australia | -2 |
| 8. | Argentina | — |
| 9. | Latvia | -3 |
| 10. | Lithuania | — |
| 11. | Slovenia | — |
| 12. | Brazil | — |
| 13. | Greece | +1 |
| 14. | Italy | -1 |
| 15. | Puerto Rico | +1 |
| 16. | Poland | -1 |
| 17. | Montenegro | — |
| 18. | Dominican Republic | +1 |
| 19. | Czechia | -1 |
| 20. | Finland | — |
| 21. | Japan | +5 |
| 22. | New Zealand | -1 |
| 23. | South Sudan | +11 |
| 24. | Georgia | -1 |
| 25. | Venezuela | -3 |
| 26. | Mexico | -1 |
| 27. | Turkey | -3 |
| 28. | Iran | -1 |
| 29. | Lebanon | -1 |
| 30. | China | -1 |
- Biggest top 30 riser: South Sudan (+11)
- Biggest top 30 faller: Spain (-4)
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How FIBA Basketball rankings are calculated
FIBA Basketball rankings factor in all games played by 164 national teams in top official FIBA competitions and their qualifiers over eight years. There are two major stages used to calculate the rankings, per FIBA:
- Calculate the rating points (RP) for each game to each team.
- Calculate the ranking according to the weighted average rating points of each team, over all games in the previous eight-year period.
Among the contributing factors are margins of victory or defeat, game location and strength of opponent. Recency of victories and performances are also taken into account.
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Other contributing factors include region of competition teams, stage and round of the competition. The full explanation of the ranking can be found here.
Ratings are calculated by “taking a penalized weighted average of rating points from their previous games.” These ratings are calculated for all teams, which are then ranked in order.
