NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide) - It's frustrating when people refer to the FIBA World Ranking Rankings as one of their main pieces of evidence when trying to demonstrate the progress or indeed the lack of it, by any basketball nation.

It's not that the rankings are completely without merit. As an American might say, they tell you what 'ball park' each country is operating in [which is a useful guide], but that is about it. Perhaps they do give a general direction of travel too, but an accurate assessment of where teams lie within the world game? Not really - even if it is the purpose.

We have to remember that continental championships vary wildly in terms of quality and depth, which is something that has a huge bearing on the rankings and skews them. FIBA's hands are understandably tied on this politically and thankfully the global tournaments in terms of the Olympics and FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup do at least start to re-order things in a way which is much more aligned to reality.

As ever, the FIBA rankings try to fulfil an impossible task and with that continental imbalance and weight of history, it is merely a spark for debate and like I said earlier - a 'ball park' barometer of a nation's competence.

As the so-called 'women's basketball expert', I took one glance at the revised rankings and disagreeing. It's a natural reaction when you see Czech Republic fifth in the world, Serbia only just breaking into the top 10, Brazil at eighth and then further down that list, I shook my head further at Italy not being in the top 30 teams in the world.

Czech Republic being so high on the FIBA Rankings is perhaps largely down to their historic accomplishments - although they remain a very good team

Venezuela are 20 places better than Hungary, Dominican Republic are almost 10 spots ahead of Ukraine [who don't even make the top 40] and Sri Lanka are rated above Germany. I know who I would take in a five-game series there! I could go on and on.

But rather than just bemoaning the rankings, I thought I had better produce my own, and so here they are - gloriously put together without any methodical system, built only on my eyes, knowledge and 'gut feeling'. Yes, with a complete disregard for all political considerations. Just think of it as a scenario where an alien lands and asks how they can find out who are the best women’s basketball teams in the world. They have the FIBA rankings and now this power ranking to choose from.

My rankings (The FIBA World Ranking Women positions are in brackets for the sake of comparison)

1. USA (1)
2. Spain (2)
3. Australia (4)
4. Serbia (9)
5. France (3)
6. Canada (6)
7. Turkey (7)
8. Russia (11)
9. Japan (13)
10. Belarus (12)
11. China (10)
12. Czech Republic (5)
13. Italy (31)
14. Montenegro (27)
15. Brazil (8)
16. Greece (20)
17. Croatia (19)
18. Senegal (17)
19. Ukraine (41)
20. Latvia (27)
21. Korea (15)
22. Great Britain (21)
23. Belgium (75+)
24. Nigeria (42)
25. Lithuania (24)

Maybe not having Cuba in the top 25 is harsh and they just miss out

Teams in the FIBA top 25 but not in my list are Argentina, Cuba, Angola, Puerto Rico, Mali and Chile.

Reflecting on the above, I know I have put the European teams high. In truth, I was actually being conservative in my choices and arguably generous to non-European nations. On this particular issue, I ask what non-European teams could qualify for a EuroBasket Women Final Round outside of the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan and China? I say possibly nobody else - if it is a 16-team tournament.

Anyway, I am sure I have missed the odd nation and this is only opinion of course, but certainly some real food for thought and debate, so continue it with me via @basketmedia365.

Paul Nilsen

FIBA

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