FIBA Men's World Ranking

This article is about the men's ranking. For the women's one, see FIBA Women's World Ranking.

Top 20 Rankings as of 26 February 2019
Rank	Change	Team	Points
1		United States	793.7
2		Spain	703.4
3		France	650.2
4		Serbia	645.4
5		Argentina	626.5
6		Lithuania	623.0
7		Slovenia	621.9
8		Greece	602.2
9		Croatia	582.9
10	1	Russia	525.3
11	1	Australia	515.0
12		Brazil	510.4
13		Italy	492.9
14		Mexico	489.9
15		Latvia	464.9
16		Puerto Rico	458.7
17		Turkey	444.1
18		Dominican Republic	434.8
19		Ukraine	425.2
20		Venezuela	410.1
Complete rankings at FIBA.basketball

The FIBA World Rankings are FIBA's rankings of national basketball teams. FIBA ranks men's and women's national teams in both senior and junior competitions. It also publishes combined rankings for all competitions involving both sexes.

Not included are rankings for 3x3, which are tabulated for individual players.

Calculation

Only FIBA tournaments for full five-a-side teams are used in calculations for the tournaments. Other tournaments, such as regional championships, invitationals, three on three half court basketball and friendlies are not included.

In 2017, FIBA radically changed its ranking system for men's national teams, switching from the previous competition-based system to a game-based system. Every game played by a national team within the last eight years in the World Cup, Olympics, continental championships, and qualifiers for these events figures into the calculations. Until the 2016 Olympic Games, the Olympics and the men's world championship gave identical score for being a world champion and Olympic, but since the new FIBA score emerged, these two tournaments devalued the score, passing from 5 points for both Olympic and world championship, to 2.5 points for playing a world championship, and 2 points for playing an Olympic game of basketball since 2017. Therefore, both tournaments will not grant a differential score with respect to others tournaments of National Teams, as they did in the past where there was no difference in points in the ranking for being world champion or Olympic, but if there was much difference until 2016 in FIBA ranking points between these two tournaments and the rest of the competitions FIBA as the continental tournaments. In the women will continue maintaining the score of 5 points for playing an Olympic or world game. But since 2017 will no longer keep the same score men.

Rating points per game

Each game in a ranking tournament is initially valued at 1,000 basis points, divided between the two teams as follows:

Victory margin	Points to winner	Points to loser
Less than 10 points	600	400
10–19 points	700	300
20 or more points	800	200
Forfeit	1000	0

The basis points are adjusted based on the site of the game, with FIBA calling this adjustment home/away points. During the finals of ranking tournaments, only games played by a host team in its own country count as "home" games; all others are treated as neutral-site games. Adjustments are:

• Home game: −70 points
• Neutral site: No adjustment
• Away game: +70 points

The basis points are also adjusted to reflect the strength of the opponent. FIBA determines what it calls opposition ranking points by the following formula:

• Opposition ranking points = 1.5 × (average pregame ranking for all national teams − opponent's pregame ranking)

A team's final rating points for a particular game is the sum of basis, home/away, and opposition ranking points.

Weighting

The new calculations still account for the specific tournament and region, as in the former procedure, but no longer explicitly consider a team's final tournament placement.

In a new feature, a time decay factor has been introduced into the calculations. More recent games carry the greatest weight, steadily declining until falling out of the calculations after 8 years:

Time of game	Weighting
Current year (Y) and immediately previous year (Y−1)	1.0
Y−2 and Y−3	0.75
Y−4 and Y−5	0.5
Y−6 and Y−7	0.25

Regional weighting remains in the system, though the specific factors vary from those used in the past men's rankings: Until the Olympic Games in 2016, the Olympics and the men's world championship gave identical scores for being a world champion and Olympic, but since the new FIBA ranking in 2017 these two tournaments devalued the score, passing from 5 points play an Olympic and world championship as it was until 2016, to award 2.5 points for playing a world championship, and 2 points for playing an Olympic game of basketball since 2017. Therefore, both tournaments will not grant a differential score with respect to others tournaments of national teams, as they did in the past where there was no difference in points in the ranking for being world champion or Olympic, but if there was much difference until 2016 in FIBA ranking points between these two tournaments, and the rest of the competitions FIBA as the continental tournaments. In the women will continue maintaining the score of 5 points for playing an Olympic or world championship. but since 2017 will no longer keep the same ranking men.

Events' weights

Historical #1 teams

FIBA uses a weighted arithmetic mean (with a minimum divisor which is not published) to determine the statistical weight of each of the tournaments. Each event is assigned point weight that is based partly on how competitive the tournament is and partly on which national teams are participating:. There were constant changes in the system of the FIBA ranking, but it can be seen that until 2016 the FIBA world championship and the games awarded the same points in the FIBA ranking, therefore the FIBA world championship and the Olympic basketball games had the same value. Therefore, for those years the World Cup and the Olympic tournament had the same prestige according to the ranking of those years. In the year 2017, according to the ranking system in the FIBA ranking, published on October 11, 2017 for the first time in history, the FIBA world championship awards more points than the Olympic tournament: 2.5 points the world championship, against 2 points the olympics games. For all this the FIBA 2019 world championship will be the first more prestigious championship than an Olympic basketball, given that it will be worth 2.5 points and the Olympic 2020, 2 points.

The 2017 FIBA ranking started on October 11, 2017. Since that date, the FIBA World Cup is worth 2.5 and the Olympic Games 2 points, although the new ranking published on October 11, 2017 is not applicable to the tournaments played until 2016, given that both tournaments they maintain the same score (5 each one).

In the future, the World Cup will be worth 2.5 points and the Olympic basketball tournament 2 points, therefore in 2019 for the first time in history the FIBA World Cup will give more points than an Olympic basketball game.

In addition to the qualifying rounds, in Europe are also included the results of the FIBA European Championship for Small Countries.

FIBA world Ranking for men. Events weight until 2016

Number	Event	Weight
2	FIBA Basketball World Cup	5
2	Olympic basketball tournaments	5
4	AfroBasket	0.2
4	FIBA AmeriCup	0.8
4	FIBA Asia Cup	0.3
4	EuroBasket	1
4	FIBA Oceania Championship	0.1

FIBA world ranking for men. Events weight since 2017

Event	Weight
FIBA Basketball World Cup	2.5
Olympic basketball tournament	2.0
AfroBasket	0.3
FIBA AmeriCup	0.8
FIBA Asia Cup	0.4
EuroBasket	1.0

From 2017 forward, FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania members compete for a single regional championship under the FIBA Asia banner. Results from the 2010–2016 period, during which FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania held separate championships, will continue to figure into the rankings until results from 2016, the final year of separate championships in the two regions, drop from the calculations in 2025.

In a new feature, FIBA also weights game results by the competition stage.

Stage	Weight
Pre-qualifier	0.25
Qualifier	0.5
Final tournament	1.0

Additionally, FIBA has added a round weighting to the system, giving each game in a final tournament (World Cup, Olympics, or continental championship) a weighting based on the round in which it takes place. Qualifying matches for these tournaments implicitly carry a round weighting of 1.0.

Round	Weight
Group stage	1.0
Round of 16	1.25
Quarterfinals	1.5
Semifinals	1.75
Final	2.0

If a competition does not have a round of 16 and/or a quarterfinal round, the results from the rounds that are held are scaled according to the number of rounds, with the group stage remaining at a 1.0 weighting and the competition final remaining at 2.0.

The final weighting is the product of the time decay, regional, competition stage, and round weights.

Cycle and updates

Rankings are now updated after every individual game in a ranking tournament (including qualifiers for such tournaments).

Examples

For examples of the new ranking calculations, see this page on FIBA's official site.

Women's rankings

Main article: FIBA Women's World Ranking

FIBA still uses the competition-based system to determine its women's rankings. As noted above, this system was also used to determine men's rankings prior to 2017. FIBA has announced that it will introduce a game-based ranking procedure similar to that currently used for men's rankings in the indeterminate future.