U.S. Shuttle Crew Beats Uruguay : Basketball: After 114-68 victory, Americans go back for another stay in a Miami hotel. Puerto Rico will be their next opponent.

A short leave from the Pan American Games worked so well for the U.S. men’s basketball team last week that it decided to take another, flying out of the Jose Marti Airport on a Miami-bound charter immediately after Monday’s 114-68 quarterfinal victory over Uruguay at the Sports City Coliseum.

USA Basketball, which governs the sport on the amateur level, drew criticism when it arranged for the men’s team to check out of the athletes’ village here and spend three nights and two days in a luxurious Coconut Grove hotel.

But after struggling in two of its first three games before leaving, the team has made the decision look good, at least from a competitive perspective, having won by 58 points over the Bahamas and 46 over Uruguay to remain undefeated.

“The media put pressure on us to win the gold medal, the coaching staff thinks it will help us win the gold medal by leaving for a couple of days, then we get criticized for leaving,” said Thomas Hill, a Duke forward.

Now, however, comes a real test. When Hill and his teammates next return to Havana, they will find a considerably more capable opponent, Puerto Rico, waiting for them.

Puerto Rico opened a 69-51 lead in another quarterfinal game Monday, then held on to beat Venezuela, 111-104, and advance to Thursday’s semifinal against the United States. Cuba, which upset defending champion Brazil in overtime Sunday, will play Mexico, a 91-77 quarterfinal winner over Argentina.

When the United States played Puerto Rico at last summer’s World Championships in Argentina, the Puerto Ricans won. This U.S. team is not considered as potent as that one, which included Alonzo Mourning, Billy Owens and Kenny Anderson. The Puerto Rican team, though, is virtually the same.

So it is little wonder that Uruguay’s coach, Javier Espindola, predicted a victory for Puerto Rico.

“We always say that the United States must be the team that is going to win, but, now, nobody knows because of the experience that the other teams have, like Puerto Rico,” he said. “I think the United States is getting better each game, but I lean toward Puerto Rico to win.”

Because so many of Puerto Rico’s players are from New York, other teams here call them New Ricans. Nearly all of them played college basketball in the United States, most notably Oregon State’s Jose Ortiz Rijos, who was drafted by Utah but chose to play professionally in Europe. Their average age is 26; the U.S. players are collegians.

“They’re great inside, they have great guards, they have players who have played American ball so they know us real well,” U.S. Coach Gene Keady of Purdue said. “I’m surprised two or three of them aren’t in the NBA.

“That team has been developing for a few years now. They’ve been putting this thing together so that they could win at the the Pan American Games or the Olympics. It will take a great game for us to win, maybe a last-second shot. The winner will be the team that does things right in the last minute.”

In 10 previous Pan American Games, the United States has won eight, but Puerto Rico has been one of the best of the rest, finishing second four times and third twice.

When they played in the semifinals four years ago at Indianapolis, the United States won, 80-75, but that was a Puerto Rican team torn by dissension because of the mid-tournament dismissal of Coach Gene Bartow of Alabama Birmingham. Infighting within the country’s basketball federation was won by those who wanted a Puerto Rican coach.

With a Puerto Rican coach, Raymond Dalmau, the team is 4-1 here, having lost to Brazil, 79-62, in the final game of first-round play.

As in last Friday’s game against the Bahamas, when it led, 18-0, the United States started fast against Uruguay, taking an 11-1 lead.

Eleven of 12 players scored for the United States before halftime, when it had a 56-32 lead. Six U.S. players scored in double figures, led by UCLA’s Tracy Murray with 16 and Ohio State’s Jim Jackson and Duke’s Christian Laettner with 15 each.

“I’m pretty surprised that we won so easily,” Keady said. “I was concerned about their offense, but it, again, was one of those games when everything fell in place. We’re getting to know each other better, so our results are better, but I guess we’ll know more about that after we play Puerto Rico.”