FIBA Quarterfinal Power Ranking

1 Spain
2 USA
3 France
4 Brazil
5 Slovenia
6 Lithuania
7 Turkey
8 Serbia

Spain is really good, man.  They've got a killer squad, veteran team, they're at home, they are rolling right now, they are clearly the favorite.  Clearly.  USA has a shot to beat them, wouldn't be a huge upset, but I don't think its likely.  Spain is taking this.

USA is good but not great.  I suppose we should take heart that they have yet to play their best game.  There's something sluggish about this team, honestly only Kenneth Faried has played his best in every game.  Derrick Rose looks good physically but his game is rusty, Anthony Davis is playing hard but I'm not sure how he fits in.  I suspect going forward there will be more playing time for DeRozan (his wing defense might be the game changer) and the bulk of the scoring will fall to Curry (not to replace Harden but to augment him).

I'm putting France ahead of Brazil because I've seen Brazil go up against USA already.  France has a lot of good talent and if they had Tony Parker I'd even give them a puncher's chance against Spain.  (The buzz is that next time around they'll have Joel Embiid in a France uni, interesting)

Brazil has good talent down low but USA handled them without much problem in a friendly in Chicago last month.  There is a chance that Brazil has been gelling since then and that USA could be worn out by now.  But I'm not buying that.

Slovenia is spunky but with Goran Dragic in the absolute sweet spot of his career, they are legitimately dangerous.  I think USA will take them this afternoon but don't be surprised if the Dragic brothers keep this close, as USA's perimeter defense is its Achilles' heel.  If Goran is money and Zoran contributes, Slovenia could put a real scare into USA.

Lithuania is paced by Jonas Valanciunas going off.  I always liked Valanciunas but he kinda got swallowed up in Toronto last year, hope this is a springboard to him being even more of a contributor to the Raptors next year.  Oh yeah, I haven't seen Lithuania play...so...yeah, go Raptors!

Turkey is solid.  I've been really impressed with Sinan Guler: he is a helluva playmaker.  And Omer Asik is a world-class big man down low.  I don't think Turkey would take either USA or Spain but they are a formidable squad, one of those teams that does a little bit of everything.

I have not watched Serbia so far.  But they beat Greece by 18 in the round of 16.  Yipes!  Curious to see how well they match up with Brazil.

If I were to do a proper top ten, I'd put Croatia higher than some of the squads that are in here; they unfortunately drew a very good France team early and got run before their time.  Greece, too, impressed me, good inside-out play, thought they'd go deeper.  And worth tipping one's hat to the swan song of Argentina's Golden Generation, still had their moments in this tournament (but, like soccer, veteran teams falter when they get a little too veteran).