ATHENS, Greece - With their hair pulled back and glitter gleaming around their eyes, a new generation of American gymnasts is ready to take its place alongside the "Magnificent Seven" who won gold in Atlanta and the Mary Lou Retton-led squad that took silver in Los Angeles.

Scratch that. As reigning world champions and Olympics favorites, these six have the chance to be known as the best group the United States has ever produced.

Their names are Carly Patterson, Courtney Kupets, Courtney McCool, Terin Humphrey, Mohini Bhardwaj and Annia Hatch. If you don't know them yet, you will after NBC fills its Tuesday night prime-time telecast with every one of their flips, twists and tumbles from the team all-around final.

These girls are so compelling they could steal the spotlight from Michael Phelps, who will be back in the pool chasing two more medals, and the men's basketball team, which will be looking to rebound from its first Olympic loss with NBA players when it faces host Greece.

"The buzz is how good the Americans are," said Bart Conner, a gold-winning gymnast in Los Angeles who is in Athens watching the tournament with his wife, 1976 star Nadia Comaneci. "This is an excellent team. Everybody has known that since last August, when they won worlds."

Sydney champion Romania will be the toughest foe. That's no surprise, as the homeland of Bela and Martha Karolyi long has produced many of the world's best gymnasts.

But there are other obstacles these Americans face that their 1984 and '96 predecessors didn't, such as the pressure of being the team to beat, a rule change that eliminates any margin for error, and not having the luxury of being on their home turf.

Shannon Miller, the most decorated U.S. gymnast and a member of the "Magnificent Seven," said competing in a foreign country is the biggest difference from 1996. While Conner considers it a big drawback - "There isn't a house full of people lifting them up," he said - Miller thinks it could help, considering the high expectations.

"You're not going to be reading or seeing all of the media all of the time, so that's kind of nice," said Miller, working this meet as a television analyst. "But I have to say, these girls are very composed. They don't let a lot of it go to their heads."

Hmmmmm. Maybe men's basketball coach Larry Brown should have them talk to his club to help snap them out of the funk that led to a 92-73 loss to Puerto Rico on Sunday. They sure don't seem to be listening to him.

Brown was grumbling even before the game that he was concerned his message, the same one that helped the Detroit Pistons upset the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA finals just two months ago, wasn't getting through. This should help.

To find out, tune to USA network at 3 p.m. EDT - fittingly going head-to-head in many markets with Oprah Winfrey and other melodramas.

Phelps also fizzled a bit Sunday, losing his bid for eight gold medals when the U.S. 400-meter freestyle team took bronze. If all goes well Monday in the 200-meter freestyle, which is no guarantee considering it's his headline duel with Ian Thorpe, then his bid for seven will continue Tuesday with the 200-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle relay.

More headliners in action Tuesday include the U.S. women's soccer and women's basketball teams, both shown live during MSNBC's 14 hours of Olympics coverage. Bravo will have live tennis, plus the women's individual sabre fencing finals on tape.

Gymnastics is sure to dominate in prime time, and NBC would certainly love for Patterson to become the star of the show.

After finishing a close second to Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina at last year's world championships, the 16-year-old from Allen, Texas, is among the handful of pre-Olympic picks to become a breakout star thanks to her ability to match jaw-dropping moves in every event with a Retton-esque killer instinct.

Her five teammates all have their strengths, and some charming tales. There's the Courtneys - who finished 1-2 at trials, but are easy to tell apart because at 4-foot-9 McCool is the shortest member of the entire U.S. delegation - and the tandem of Bhardwaj and Hatch, 20-somethings who came out of retirement to return to their sport's highest level.

Unlike past Olympics, teams can use only three people in each event and every score counts; no more throwing out the worst one.

The beauty of the U.S. team is that coordinator Martha Karolyi usually will have four or five gymnasts to choose from in each event. Her squad is considered so strong that if broken into two threesomes, each could make the top five.

They didn't exactly show it during prelims Sunday, bobbling too many times on the floor and vault.

"We know we left a lot of tenths on the floor," said Bob Colarossi, president of USA Gymnastics. "That's all right. We didn't come here to win preliminaries."

AP-ES-08-16-04 0101EDT