The status of the Gilas Pilipinas national men’s basketball team remained unchanged in the FIBA World Ranking For Men.
Team Pilipinas remained at 31st spot after the rankings were updated following the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The United States, Spain and Australia remained first, second and third, respectively.
The rating of Gilas was based on its performance in two recent FIBA tournaments.
Last August, Gilas lost two straight setbacks at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Belgrade.
Prior to this, however, in June, Gilas had a six-game sweep of its matches in Group A of the FIBA Asia Qualifiers at Clark, Pampanga.
On the other hand, Team USA stayed at no. 1 after the country’s all-time leading Olympic scorer and tournament MVP Kevin Durant, led the Americans beat France in the Tokyo Olympics’ basketball final and claim the gold medal for the fourth consecutive time.
Spain, the reigning World Cup champions, rose to no. 2 after reaching the quarterfinals.
Australia, which made it to the podium of the Olympics for the first time by winning the bronze medal game over Slovenia, leapt by 12 points to the no. 4 world ranking.
Slovenia, behind Dallas Mavericks’ star Luka Doncic, took fifth after winning the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Kaunas, Lithuania, and bagged its first slot to the Olympiad.
Gilas, which is preparing to see action in the FIBA Asia Cup next year, currently has a young crop of players in its roster.
This includes RJ Abarrientos, Justine Baltazar, SJ Belangel, Geo Chiu, Isaac Go, Jordan Heading, Ange Kouame, William Navarro, Mike Nieto, Carl Tamayo, and Dwight Ramos.
The FIBA Asia Cup 2021 will be played as planned in Jakarta, Indonesia, but has been rescheduled to July 2022, right after the window of the FIBA Basketball World Cup Asia Qualifiers.
