If Team USA’s exhibition loss to Italy was a wake-up call – as many of the players claimed – then they should sue the hotel.

Puerto Rico routed the U.S. men’s basketball team 92-73 yesterday, leading by double digits nearly the entire way and handing Team USA its first Olympic loss since American pro players began competing in 1992.

Utah Jazz guard Carlos Arroyo scored 24 points and repeatedly beat the U.S. defenders in the lane while the Americans endured a 3-for-24 nightmare on 3-point shots.

“I think Puerto Rico right now is celebrating big because of this,” Arroyo told the Associated Press. “By far it’s the happiest victory of my career.”

As with any upset, every bounce seemed to go Puerto Rico’s way. None was more crucial than Arroyo’s banked 3-pointer with five minutes left, ending a U.S. rally that had cut a 22-point halftime deficit to 69-61. Daniel Santiago, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, took a 15-footer from the baseline that wedged between the backboard and rim, bounced straight up in the air, and glided perfectly down through the net. Fittingly, the game closed with Eddie Casiano draining a 40-foot 3-pointer to give Puerto Rico their final margin of victory.

But even without those bounces, the Puerto Ricans would have cruised to an easy win thanks to an en fuego second quarter in which they outscored the U.S. 28-7. Arroyo and backcourt mate Larry Ayuso, who played at USC, were the aggressors the entire quarter, creating plays off the dribble and finding openings for teammates.

The tentative U.S. team couldn’t figure out how to attack a packed-in Puerto Rico zone that dared the Americans to shoot from outside. Whenever the Americans accepted the offer, they played right into Puerto Rico’s hands, making just 1-of-13 from downtown in the first half and a pathetic 3-of-24 on the game.

“We couldn’t hit anything. I shot two off the side of the backboard. Never in my life have I done that,” Richard Jefferson told the AP after shoting just 3-for-16 despite being the team’s “best” 3- point shooter (he hit 36% during the NBA season).”This was a worst-case scenario.”

The inability to make a jump shot is not surprising – the same problem plagued the U.S. during the 2002 World Championships. Stu Jackson, who somehow parlayed his reign of error as coach of the Knicks into a plum job with USA Basketball, ignored the glaring need for a shooter when he selected players like Dwyane Wade,Carmelo Anthony, and Carlos Boozer to fill out the roster. A pure shooter would have radically altered yesterday’s outcome.

But all the shooters in the world wouldn’t change the fact that the U.S. defense was absolutely,inexcusably terrible. The Americans gave up 92 points yesterday, while no other team gave up more than 83. In other words, despite the athleticism,quickness,and talent of the American squad, they were the worst defensive team here – worse than New Zealand, worse than China, worse even than Angola.

Stephon Marbury was a key reason for the humiliating loss.He was regularly beaten by Arroyo and struggled to find the range on his jump shot, finishing with just two points. The defensive effort picked up noticeably when Wade replaced Marbury and stopped giving Arroyo an easy freeway to the rim.

Marbury was not alone. LeBron James was beaten badly on a back-door cut during his brief fourth-quarter cameo. Lamar Odom spent the entire game in foul trouble, aided by a bogus third foul. Even the normally dominant Tim Duncan was surprisingly quiet when it came to stopping opponents’ forays to the rim.

“I’m angry because the mentality of our team was like this from day one,” U.S. coach Larry Brown told the AP. “I’m humiliated. Not for the loss. I can always deal with wins and losses. I’m humiliated because I had a job to do as a coach and I don’t think we did it.You can coach X’s and O’s. You shouldn’t have to coach effort. From early on with a lot of these young kids, they didn’t have a clue what was in store for us.”

What makes the loss particularly galling is that Puerto Rico – a U.S. territory, for crying out loud – wasn’t expected to be a threat in these Olympics. The only reason they even qualified is that they had home-court advantage in the qualifying tournament and man aged to upset Canada in the third-place game. Just two weeks ago, this same U.S. team romped to a 96-71 exhibition win over Puerto Rico.

The loss drops the U.S. to 109-3 in Olympic play. The other two losses involved American college players and came in close games against Russian teams that went on to win the gold. Puerto Rico is unlikely to win a medal, but they controlled the game from beginning to end despite having only three NBA players on their roster.

Fortunately for the U.S., this will be a relatively easy defeat to bounce back from. Pool play in the Olympics is virtually meaningless: Eight of the 12 teams advance to the medal round. From there, it’s single-elimination, and that’s when the real business of deciding the gold medal begins.

However, yesterday’s game proves that there’s no such thing as an easy game anymore. If the Americans can be crushed by Puerto Rico, there’s no reason they can’t also lose to Greece, or to Australia, or even to Angola, who nearly upset Lithuania yesterday.

The key will be the defense. Even with the dreadful American shooting, 73 points was more than enough to win. But they must play the entire game with the intensity and determination that they showed when their backs were against the wall in the fourth quarter.

Let’s just hope that this time, they got the wake-up call.