Basketball New Zealand

Tall Blacks guard Kirk Penney (FIBA)

The New Zealand Tall Blacks have dropped a place while their Tall Ferns counterparts have remained steady in the latest FIBA World Rankings released on Monday.

After missing out on qualifying for their third straight Olympics in July, the Tall Blacks knew they were in for a drop but, despite losing 40 points since the last rankings in September 2007, the one position drop from 13th to 14th was less than anticipated.

The Tall Ferns, who finished 10th in their third consecutive Olympics appearance in Beijing, picked up five points to remain 16th between Japan and Belarus.

The FIBA world rankings take into account results from the Olympics, World Championships, zone championships, under-21 and under-19 world championships over a two Olympic Games (eight-year) cycle.

So points gained from Beijing replaced points from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The Tall Blacks were expected to sink further but the Olympic performances of Russia, the current European champions who missed the quarterfinals, and Croatia, who reached the last eight, were not enough to vault New Zealand.

Angola and Turkey, the Tall Blacks closest stalkers pre-Olympics, both moved ahead even though Angola finished 12th in Beijing and Turkey did not qualify.

The major surprise came at the top of the men’s rankings with 2008 Olympic champions, the USA, falling from the number one spot they had made their own, with Athens gold medalists and Beijing bronze medalists Argentina the new numero uno.

France, who failed to qualify for the Olympics, were the big losers, skydiving from eighth to 17th after losing 200 points. France were the silver medalists to the USA in Sydney but could only manage eighth at the 2007 Eurobasket tournament.

Atop the women’s rankings, the gold medal-winning USA remained number one, while the bronze medal finish of Russia vaulted them into second ahead of the silver medalists and current world champions, Australia.