Nigeria’s men’s basketball team, the D’Tigers maintained their 32nd position in the latest FIBA World Ranking for the month of February released on Thursday. D’Tigers are one of the 17 teams that remained stagnant in the latest ranking. The Nigerian team is currently participating in the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup African Qualifiers where they lead Group D with six points following three wins out of three games.
The 2017 FIBA AfroBasket runner-up, D’Tigers amassed 228.8 points to retain their status as the number one team in Africa. Senegal moved up one place to second from third position in Africa with 203.0 points to finish 35th in the world ranking after getting their FIBA Basketball World Cup African Qualifiers underway with two wins and a loss in Group D.
Angola dropped to third position in Africa and four places in the world ranking from 33 to 37, churning 197.4 points. Egypt moved up one step to fourth position with 135.1 points to be ranked the 50th best team in the world while current African champions, Tunisian dropped six places to be ranked 52nd in the world and fifth in Africa.
Other countries in the African top ten are Morocco in sixth place (63rd in the world), Cameroon (65th in the world), Mali (70th in the world), Cote D’ Iviore (72nd in the world) and Central African Republic (75th in the world). In the World Ranking, USA remains the top team in the world and they are followed by Spain, France Serbia, and Argentina in the top five. Lituania, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece and Australia completed the top ten.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Mozambique, Uganda and UAE were the biggest movers.
Rankings Explained
The new rankings system is based on results of games ranging from regional pre-qualifiers all the way to the FIBA Basketball World Cup final, and includes the Olympic basketball tournament as well as continental Cups. The previous rankings were purely competition-based and only took into account the final standings of tournaments.
The basic principle is simple: 1000 basis points are awarded in each game, with the two teams earning a share of these according to the margin of victory or defeat. Weightings are added on a round basis meaning that, when a team progresses through an official FIBA competition, wins are worth more with every round played.
The rankings have revised weightings of the competitions. For the first time, it sees the implementation of time decay, rewarding teams for their most recent performances. This replaces the system in place under the previous rankings, where all games over the eight-year period received the exact same value.
Finally, the new ranking also recognises the value of away wins and rewards facing and beating opponents that are higher in the rankings.
