Expdonaloaded News; FIBA ranking: Nigeria drops one spot despite AfroBasket 2015 win

DESPITE winning the AfroBasket 2015 men’s championship held in Tunisia, D’ Tigers of Ni- geria fell one spot in the latest FIBA ranking, as Nigeria is now at 25 in the world.This latest ranking for Nigeria was calculated within the scope of a two Olympic Games cycle (including qualifying competitions at FIBA Zone level), which saw Nigeria win the AfroBasket as it did in Tunisia on 30 August and qualified for the Olympics, only to still fall a place to number 25.

Angola got to within a single victory of de- fending her AfroBasket title but lost to a very im- pressive Nigeria, 74-65, in the title clash and still remains Africa’s best team followed by Tunisia that was ranked second best on the continent. The Angolans had risen a place to No. 15, moving above Puerto Rico, who dropped to 16th after their fifth-place finish at the FIBA Americas Championship.
The idle United States retained top spot and EuroBasket 2015 winners Spain remained sec- ond, however, there was a change at number 3 with Lithuania leapfrogging Argentina into that position.
The Lithuanians got huge performances from All-Star Five selections Jonas Maciulis and Jo- nas Valanciunas and again made a strong run to the championship game of EuroBasket 2015 be- fore losing to Spain, 80-63.