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| Photo by: Sergio Perez (Reuters) |
No doubt, if you are crazy enough to be reading this blog, you stayed up last night to watch the Gold Medal Game. (And what a game it was!) Anyhoo . . . here are the final rankings for the 2008 Olympic Games and the updated FIBA Rankings. (Oh yeah, that's right, USA isn't #1 after all. Huh?)
| 2008 Olympic Games | Rank (Previous rank from January, 2008) | FIBA Top 20 Rankings | Pts. | |||
| 1 - Gold |  USA | 8 - 0 | 1 (3) |  Argentina | 876 | |
| 2 - Silver |  Spain | 6 - 2 | 2 (1) |  USA | 832.2 | |
| 3 - Bronze |  Argentina | 6 - 2 | 3 (5) |  Spain | 730 | |
| 4 |  Lithuania | 5 - 3 | 4 (11) |  Greece | 499 | |
| 5 |  Greece | 3 - 3 | 5 (2) |  Serbia | 469 | |
| 6 |  Croatia | 3 - 3 | 6 (6) |  Lithuania | 411 | |
| 7 |  Australia | 3 - 3 | 7 (14) |  Germany | 329 | |
| 8 |  China | 2 - 4 | 8 (4) |  Italy | 308 | |
| 9 |  Russia | 1 - 4 | 9 (8) |  Australia | 269 | |
| 10 |  Germany | 1 - 4 | 10 (12) |  China | 262.7 | |
| 11 |  Iran | 0 - 5 | 11 (9) |  Puerto Rico | 232.6 | |
| 12 |  Angola | 0 - 5 | 12 (17) |  Angola | 206 | |
| 13 (18) |  Turkey | 203 | ||||
| 14 (16) |  New Zealand | 187 | ||||
| 15 (7) |  Russia | 181 | ||||
| 16 (15) |  Brazil | 173.6 | ||||
| 17 (10) |  France | 169 | ||||
| 18 (19) |  Croatia | 165 | ||||
| 19 (13) |  Canada | 124.2 | ||||
| 20 (-) |  Slovenia | 124 |
Biggest risers / Biggest Fall since the end of EuroBasket 2007:
Greece and Germany both went up 7 spots -- partly due to their rankings in the pre-Olympic Qualifying tournament. Turkey and Angola both went up 5 spots -- Angola's ranking is inflated because their FIBA score happens to be buoyed by ranked wins against other FIBA Africa nations. (yes, their relative earned win score is less, but they still have to face easier comp than, say, the European or American teams) Furthermore, Angola is still ranked higher than Turkey, but if the two teams played I'm pretty sure Turkey would win -- Angola doesn't have anyone on their roster taller than 6'5, if I remember correctly. The Turks are huge up front (arguably bigger than Spain, Greece and Russia in the paint).
Italy, led by Andrea Bargnani (of the Toronto Raptors), Marco Belinelli (of the Golden State Warriors) and new kid on the block Danilo Gallinari fell 4 spots since the end of 2007. Canada, bereft of 'professionally' acting professionals fell 6 spots in 8 months. France, with a ton of NBA talent (Parker, Diaw, Pietrus, Diawara, Mahinmi, Turiaf, etc) went down an impressive 7 FIBA spots, Russia (who won EuroBasket 2007, and didn't make it out of the round robin part of the Olympics) fell 8 spots. France and Russia were both Top 10 teams 8 months ago. How the mighty have fallen!
Wait, The USA won the Gold Medal, isn't that worth +50 points at the very least, why are they #2?
I don't know. But for those who want to know, FIBA Asia champion Iran is ranked #23 in the world. Actually, the Top 25 rounds out to be: Venezuela (95.2), Nigeria (93.6), Iran (73.1), Lebanon (70.5) and Israel (60.0). If you want to see the full list, you know, if you wanted to confirm that India (#46, 9.9 pts.) was ranked higher than the Philippines (#63, 4.2 pts.) you could click here.
