History has been made as Spain is the new number one team in the latest FIBA World Ranking Men, presented by Nike. With USA holding the number one spot for over 12 years, Spain is only the second team to top the ranking since its introduction in 2010.
Spain’s jump from No. 2 to the top spot resulted from their consistency in recent years in each game of each competition. Spain captured the titles at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 and the FIBA EuroBasket 2022 while also reaching the Quarter-Finals of the Tokyo Olympics. Their qualification campaigns since 2017 have also been very solid to help gain more points.
The United States of America meanwhile did claim the gold at the Olympics but they dropped out of the World Cup in the Quarter-Finals and finished third at the FIBA AmeriCup 2022.
Spain’s most recent window for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 Qualifiers was once again successful, winning a thriller in Italy and against Netherlands in theEuropean Qualifiers to book their ticket to Asia.
A key component to Spain’s consistency has been their ability to evolve as a national team over the years and develop a large pool of players through the FIBA qualifiers. Sergio Scariolo has used 29 players with nine of them playing in six or more games and three with nine appearances.
Spain lead the ranking with 758.6 points followed by the United States with 757.5 points. The rest of the top 10 remained unchanged: Australia, Argentina, France, Serbia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Greece and Italy.
Brazil’s win over the United States and subsequent blowout of Mexico allowed the South Americans to jump one spot from 14 to 13 – swapping places with Poland.
The biggest riser in the ranking is Thailand as they won all four of their games in theFIBA Asia Cup 2025 Pre-Qualifiers in the November window to move up 10 spots to 92nd in the world.
For more information about the method used in the calculation of the FIBA World Ranking Men, please refer to the “How It Works” section.
Click here to view the full FIBA World Ranking Men, presented by Nike.
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