Which FIBA Asia Cup 2021 Qualifiers teams climbed the most in the most recent ranking update?
BEIRUT (Lebanon) - Teams got their chances to take on strong opponents in window 1 of the Asia Cup Qualifiers and their performances were rewarded with movement up the FIBA World Ranking.
BEIRUT (Lebanon) - The FIBA World Ranking presented by Nike has been updated following an exciting first window of the FIBA Asia Cup 2021 Qualifiers with some upset-minded teams moving up the ladder.
Australia (666.5) maintained their spot at the top among teams in Asia - Oceania, even after a loss at home against New Zealand (421.2) to tip off the action of the first window. There were no movements among the top teams in the region with all of the top 10 teams from the previous update of the rankings holding on to their spots.
Instead, the most positive steps upward of the rankings among the 24 teams were made by those that got opportunities to take on strong opponents in the first window.
Thailand (90.8 points) were the biggest climber of the update in the region by moving up 6 spots, which was also the 5th highest climb among all teams worldwide. Thailand played away against Korea (341.5 points) in this first window, pushing their opponents to the brink before taking in a 93-86 loss.
Another high climber was Syria (94.6 points), who moved up 5 spots. They were able to overtake Saudi Arabia’s (94.0 points) spot at 19th in the region, a result of their clash in the window. Though Syria had lost their first game to Iran, they regrouped and went right into Jeddah for their second match to take an overtime win over the home team.
India (117.1) also moved up one spot to claim 12th place in the region for this update. Their first game of the window resulted in a loss on a heartbreaking game-winner by Bahrain (80.8), who also moved up one spot in the rankings. However, India’s second game was a crushing win against Iraq (109.9) in Baghdad which was enough for the team to end the window on a high note.
India's climb came at the expense of Guam (104.5) who took one of the hardest falls in this update of 11 spots after their home loss to New Zealand.
Click here to view the full FIBA World Ranking Men, presented by Nike.
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