Coach Gregg Popovich deflected talk about his missing megastars after Team USA's glorious run in major competition came to a juddering halt on Wednesday at the hands of France.

The U.S. lost to Greece in the World Cup semi-finals in 2006 but then went on a 58-game winning streak with NBA players on the roster that brought them three Olympic golds and two World Cup crowns.

But they became just the latest high-profile casualty in China as the powerhouses of basketball went down 89-79 in the quarter-finals to France.

The prospect of an early American exit had always looked possible after they sent an unfamiliar collection of second-tier stars.

They also had one of the youngest rosters at the World Cup after their top NBA names pulled out injured or otherwise made themselves unavailable.

LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Paul George all opted out.

Of the 35 players originally picked last year by USA Basketball for its roster pool this summer, four made it to China. The group that ultimately got assembled for this mission was a bunch of guys not even on the radar screens when this selection process began, a group that decided playing with and against really good players all summer - while getting coached by Gregg Popovich - was worth giving up nearly two months of an off-season.

They played hard. But there's no medal for playing hard.

"I know that people are going to focus on who we didn't have, but how about we focus on who we do have?" U.S. guard Donovan Mitchell said after his 29-point performance on Wednesday night. "Our season ended, and we came out ready to work with Coach Pop and all his coaches. It's not about who's not here. I've been saying that for a while."

"Doesn't matter who is on the team, and I couldn't be more proud of these 12 guys who sacrificed their summer to come here, having never played with each other before," Popovich said. "They put themselves in the arena and competed, and they deserve credit for that, just like France deserves credit for winning. It's not about, well, the United States didn't have their other guys."

"There's no such thing as other guys. These are the guys that were here, and they did a great job, and I'm very proud of them," said the 70-year-old Popovich.

Popovich will be there next summer, when the U.S. looks for a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Tokyo. There's no way of knowing yet if any of the players from this World Cup team will be on the roster with him next summer. Mitchell and Kemba Walker will likely be strongly considered if they are healthy. Expect plenty of other big U.S. names to find the time that just didn't seem to be there this summer.

If the Olympic team loses, then it's really a debacle.

The World Cup team losing, in a game where they were using guards and forwards against a big-time NBA center like Gobert out of necessity, that seems like it was only really upsetting to the World Cup team itself.

"We have 12 guys who are going to compete for America, just like every country," Mitchell said. "It sucks that some of our country people don't feel that way about us, but we don't care. We're going to compete."

(With input from AFP, AP)