Canada has made a major jump in the FIBA world rankings after winning their first medal at the 2023 FIBA World Cup in Manila, Philippines.
The Canadians entered the 32-team quadrennial tournament ranked 15th and after an impressive 6-2 record and a bronze medal, they rose nine places to their highest all-time FIBA world ranking spot of sixth.
Thanks to their impressive +121 point differential (790-669) and several convincing blow-out victories, Canada saw a significant increase in their ranking points from 577.8 in February 2023 to 745.5, a jump of 167.7 points, as FIBA awards points per game based on the margin of victory.
Additionally, the Canadians moved up two spots to leapfrog all other FIBA Americas teams except the United States to claim the second spot in the regional zone ranking. Recently, Canada had trailed Argentina and Brazil. In the past it also lagged behind, Venezuela, Puerto Rico.
Canada was ranked 23rd when the first rankings were published on September 20th, 2010 and remained in the mid-twenties for the past decade, until its ranking improved to 18th after the Tokyo Olympic tournament in August 2021. This was due to their advancement to the finals of the Victoria Olympic Qualifying tournament.
After going 11-1 in the FIBA World Cup Americas qualification process, Canada’s ranking rose to 15th place in September 2022 when the rankings were updated after the Asia Cup, AmeriCup and EuroBasket had concluded.
Canada SMNT Historical FIBA World Rankings
The FIBA World Rankings, introduced in September 2010 to replace the outdated competition-based system, underwent further refinements in October 2017.
These updates included the incorporation of a new rating points system, weighted arithmetic mean for, competition state round weighting, competition stage and time decay factor, taking into account results from the past eight years.
The rankings are regularly updated, following every qualification window and official FIBA competitions, offering national teams a valuable tool to monitor their progress and evolution over time.
