NEW International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Ranking for Men, presented by Nike, saw Guyana on the ranking board for the first time in the country’s rich basketball history.

Guyana is now ranked 110 out of 213 national teams, after having never been ranked before and was considered to be one of the unranked countries within FIBA for the past 56 years.

Both Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) president, Nigel Hinds, and GABF International General Secretary and CBC Vice President, Patrick Haynes, are quite pleased that the National Senior Men’s Team was able to capture such a high worldwide ranking, and are very optimistic that the team will be ranked even higher after next year’s FIBA AmeriCup Caribbean Pre-Qualifier, which will be hosted by Suriname in June 2018.

The Guyana Men’s National team placed 5th in the 2014 CBC Championships in Tortola, BVI, which was its best performance in this decade.

Caribbean countries ranked higher in the list include: (15) Puerto Rico, (17) Dominican Republic, (51) Virgin Islands, (59) Bahamas, (60) Cuba, (68) Jamaica, (76) Antigua and Barbuda , (92) British Virgin Islands, (97) Barbados, (100) St. Vincent and the Grenadines, (109) Bermuda, while Guyana(110) outranked Suriname (118), Cayman Islands(121) and Trinidad and Tobago (143).

The Nigel Hinds-headed administration was able to source the required funds to get Guyana’s overseas athletes to these important qualifying championships and being able to be ranked for the first time ever in 56 years of Guyana basketball is a significant accomplishment.

On October 11, FIBA officially launched the new FIBA World Ranking for Men, presented by Nike. This is an innovative game-based ranking that factors in all official 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 the Continental Cups.

As a result, it can more accurately reflect the performances of 153 national teams over an eight-year period, compared to 91 national teams under the previous system which was competition-based and only took into account the final standings of tournaments.

The basic principle is simple: 1,000 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 a top official FIBA competition, its wins are worth more with every round it plays.

The ranking has revised weightings of the competitions. For the first time, it sees the implementation of a time decay rewarding teams for their most recent performances. This replaces the system in place under the previous ranking, where all games over the 8-year period received the same value.

Finally, the new ranking also recognizes the value of away wins and rewards facing and beating opponents that are higher in the ranking.

The new ranking was devised with the new calendar clearly in mind. FIBA is pleased to offer more national teams– 149 of them–a ranking that can be updated after every window of the Qualifiers so that national teams, fans and their national federations can follow their progress on a more regular basis.

For now, the new FIBA World Ranking for Men, presented by Nike, only applies to senior men’s national teams and competitions. FIBA will work towards drawing up and implementing similar systems for the women’s and youth (boys and girls) rankings at a later stage.