Spain overtakes USA for No. 1 spot in FIBA men's hoops rankings

For the first time in 12 years, USA Basketball is not atop the world men's rankings.

FIBA, the sport's governing body, updated its rankings Friday, and Spain moved into the top spot, a sliver ahead of the U.S.

The next 10 spots in the world rankings were unchanged. Australia is third, Argentina -- which was No. 1 before the U.S. took that spot in 2010 -- is fourth, followed by France, Serbia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Greece, Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Basketball was never a game that appealed to me. Even when I used to watch a lot of sports. Years back I got tickets from work for a Celtics game and saw my first NBA game live, and from pretty decent seats too. I was maybe eight rows back from the floor and could see the players and coaches on the bench up close.

But I just couldn't get into it. All those half-naked sweaty men in shorts and wife-beater T-shirts with numbers on them, clutching each other, sneakers squeaking the whole time. All the grunting and moaning. The constant fouling and free shots. Players falling to the floor and sliding in a ridiculous and exaggerated manner (in an effort to draw a foul). All the players on the bench waving white towels.

Then you had all the "slam-dunking" being done by the freakishly tall men right at the hoop. Where is the skill in that? I had some appreciation for the skill involved in sinking a shot from 3-point territory or doing a behind-the-back pass to a teammate, but what is the skill in some 7-foot-plus tall man jamming the ball into the net by hanging onto it like some monkey?

All the whistles, buzzers, and wild arm-waving from the referees. All the fouls and "technical" fouls being called by the referees. Couldn't make heads or tails of what that was all about but it seemed like whenever something decent was about to happen on the court, the referees would whistle the play dead and call one of those fouls.

Then the final two minutes of the game somehow took longer than the entire rest of the game up to that point due to all the time-outs being taken. The game finally came to a merciful end when one of the players desperately threw the ball 3/4 of the way down the court with one second left and somehow hit the rim, which was the most impressive thing I saw all night.

The final score was something like 116-113 and I pretty much had no idea how the score even got that high.

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