Well-deserved after an impressive Eurobasket showing where everyone counted them out, myself included. I know they had an NP but their culture and team play had more to do with winning than Lorenzo Brown. They deserve it.

I can't agree they deserve it. The USA has won six of the past seven major world tournaments and two of three in the current cycle. They are number one, and if the ranking system produces anything other than that, the system has an issue.

'Look up where fiba headquarters is!'

Those damn Swiss!

Amazing how you (Team USA) lose your number 1 ranking by losing to Mexico (31st in the world) twice in the past year. Losing to Brazil by 25 at home last week was the final nail in the coffin.

Of course this was a team without any NBA players but they should be able to find a winning team anyway.

Correct, USA disrespect the qualifiers so it was inevitable.

Let's be honest, they need to fix the qualifier method.

It’s all well and good for people to say "well don’t disrespect the qualifiers" but I think if you finish in the top 4 of any WC or Olympics it should earn automatic qualification to the next big event.

Have qualifiers happen less drawn out in a neutral spot to give the best chance of the best players to play.

Top 4 rank doesn’t need to be ordered gold, silver, bronze, 4th, it can consider those 4 nations in the last 2 or 3 major events.

IMO that’s the fairest most reflective approach and would have USA #1 evidently, France probably #2.

Spain #3, Australia #4 maybe or vice versa.

It's all well and good for people to say there should be automatic qualification for the top teams but that ignores the fact FIBA wants to stay semi-relevant outside of major tournaments so have used the FIFA in-season international window trick.

It's a power struggle between clubs and national federations and a concession of this nature isn't in FIBA's best interest. The US in particular wouldn't bother scheduling friendlies in place of qualifiers so it would dilute the influence FIBA crave even further.

New update


Men #3
Recent asia cup 1st place and 3rd place at Olympics

Women #3
Recent asia cup 3rd place and 3rd place at WC

Boys somehow rise to #4 from #8
U19 WC 10th, u17 WC 6th, u16 asia 1st, u18 asia (dnp)

Girls somehow drop from #2 to #3
U19 WC 2nd, u17 WC 5th, u16 asia 1st, u18 asia 1st

3/3/4/3.

Impressive.

More than 'impressive', PW - it’s fookin’ amazing when you think about the amount of money put into the game by a lot of other countries.

USA 2/1/1/1
Spain 1/4/2/4
France 5/6/3/2
Serbia 6/8/6/34
Canada 15/5/7/5

The loss to slovenia in the girls u17 WC tournament cost them big time. Losing to a team ranked 45 at the time pretty much lost them 2nd spot. Was a poorly chosen side with the auto Coe selections. Look at the 05/06 age group now and 1/2 the team would struggle to make the squad.

More than 'impressive', PW - it's fookin’ amazing when you think about the amount of money put into the game by a lot of other countries.

USA back to the top


Aus down 1 to 4th
Latvia up 22 spots
Canada up 9 spots
Germany up 8 spots overtaking the boomers
Serbia just up 1 after semi
France now 9th
Argentina only drop 3 after missing WC.