FIBA World Rankings updated after 2012 Olympics

The newest FIBA world rankings have come out taking into account what went down in the 2012 London Olympics.

The United States won gold for the second straight Olympics beating Spain 107-100 in the gold medal game and unsurprisingly remain atop the FIBA rankings.

The top five on the rankings are still the same, in order USA, Spain, Argentina, Greece and Lithuania.

Russia jumped five spots to the No. 6 spot replacing Turkey who slides back to No. 7. Russia had a very impressive Olympics finishing first in their group and beating Brazil and Spain in the process. They would go on to lose to Spain in the semifinal round however but did beat Argentina in the bronze medal game.

France and Brazil who each fared well in the Olympics as well moved up four spots each to No. 8 and 9, respectively. Australia will round out the top 10.

Great Britain made the greatest leap moving up 20 spots on the rankings to No. 23. Great Britain played in the Olympics only because they were the host country and were led by a very valiant performance by Luol Deng in the Games.

Tunisia also moved up quite a bit getting 10 spots higher to No. 22 after also participating in the Olympics.

The Republic of Congo, Liberia and Togo remain unchanged in the rankings, all tied for last in the world.

There is talk from NBA commissioner David Stern about putting together a Basketball World Cup that would resemble what soccer has and essentially be competition for Olympic basketball.

So that may be on the horizon as well as the discussed 23-and-under age-limit that may be put on American players but that is not expected to come in to effect until 2020 at the earliest.