INDIANAPOLIS — It has to be the last in a lengthy list of reasons Team USA fell to pieces at the FIBA World Basketball Championship.
But it's a fact that can't be ignored.
Few in America seem to care the event is even being held, let alone that is being hosted on U.S. soil in what is supposed to be a heartland hotbed of hoops.
Hoosier hysteria?
Ha.
"It didn't feel like I was playing in America," Peja Stojakovic said after helping lead Yugoslavia to an 81-78 quarterfinal victory over the United States on Thursday night at Conseco Fieldhouse, home of the NBA's Indiana Pacers and a beautifully built arena designed to mimic the old gyms that lend lore to the state's storied college and high school hoops history.
Thursday's loss eliminated the team of U.S. NBA stars from medal contention and relegated them into Friday night's semifinal game against Puerto Rico in the four-team fight for fifth place.
Team USA won that one, 84-74.
But it's not the Puerto Rican game that the whipped Americans will remember most.
Rather, it's the one against Yugoslavia, and yet another loss, this one Wednesday night in second-round pool play against Argentina.
Before those two defeats, no U.S. international team stocked by NBA stars had lost in the 10 years since the Dream Team concept was born — a streak of 58-0.
After those two defeats, the Americans felt as if they had just played a couple road games.
"It would have been nice to have a packed house," Pacers star Reggie Miller said after playing in front of an announced crowd of 5,362, the overwhelming majority of whom were Yugoslavian fans.
"I felt like I was playing at home," Stojakovic said. "Our people appreciate us. Playing for them brings us joy."
Not so for the Americans.
Through Thursday, the tourney was averaging only 5,970 fans per game. Only two sessions drew more than 10,000 — one, granted, an impressive crowd of 22,619 to watch the U.S. play China in a first-round game at the RCA Dome.
Actual attendance has been even lower than the announced average of less than 6,000. At some games, the audiences have seemed more sparse than those that gather in the summer to watch the Jazz's Rocky Mountain Revue summer-league games. American fans have mostly been outnumbered by those of opposing countries, folks whose vocal and visible patriotic spirit has shamed those from right here at home.
During one U.S. game, event officials allowed what few fans there were in the uppermost deck of Conseco Fieldhouse to move down, in part so they could help fill sections of seats that looked so pitifully empty on television and in the background of still photos.
Media coverage of the tourney, which is wildly popular in both Europe and South America, has been rather muted.
The local Indianapolis Star has devoted more than four full pages for the last several days, but on Monday its advance story for the U.S. game against Russia was played below coverage of, go figure, a drag-racing event.
When the Argentines managed their historic upset of the Americans, it received scant coverage in USA Today.
Tournament officials claim to be pleased with attendance, noting early-round interest in the week-plus-long affair has been higher than in previous World Championships held elsewhere.
Yet they slashed upper-deck ticket prices for today's semifinals from $65 to $20 and for Sunday's title game from $95 to $20 — and that was even before the U.S. team was eliminated Thursday, leaving Yugoslavia to play New Zealand in one semifinal and Germany to face undefeated Argentina in the other.
No wonder American players seemed so flustered.
"The support really wasn't there from the start," said USA point guard Andre Miller, the former University of Utah star.
"I mean, we're on our home turf — and we can't even get a certain amount of people to come support us."
Still, Miller was quick to acknowledge, that should be no excuse for the way the Americans played.
"The crowd doesn't decide who wins the game," he said. "We decide when we step on the court."
Even if hardly anyone is there to watch.
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com