American Sports is Going Down... Again.

How far has American sports slipped in international standards?

It's all Greek to Team USA, struggling to understand how they've slipped from the summit of world sports, basketball included. Many of them can no more grasp their team's loss to Greece at the FIFA World Championships than pronounce ''Sofoklis Schortsianitis.''

Canadians have been down this road with hockey, especially. They also learned the hard way that the rest of the world is a place not to be underestimated. Canada is a small nation on the world sporting stage, in any event.

The U.S., though, the world's only remaining ''superpower,'' is used to being prohibitive favorite in things it takes seriously. Like NBA Basketball. Even though Team USA has been getting stunned periodically on the international hoops stage for nearly 20 years, they still assume it is impossible to happen again.

''We commit the single most arrogant and unpardonable mistake in competition. We underestimate the opponent,'' writes columnist Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post. ''Hell, half the time we don't even pay any attention to the opponent. We didn't know the Greek players, so how could they be any good? Where are their phat shoe contracts? Where were they in the Top 10 Dunks on SportsCenter? How talented could they be if they don't have a Gatorade commercial or answer to a single name like Shaq or Kobe or LeBron?''

America might not know the rest of the world. But the rest of the world knows America. Could there be any more satisfying win than over the No.1, all-world Yanks?

Where would they be without Tiger Woods? Thanking their lucky stars and stripes for NASCAR and good-old John Madden in NFL Football? Yep, USA is definitely on a collective slump.