San Juan, Puerto Rico ? Argentina couldn’t do it again, not with Jermaine O’Neal taking a huge first step on the road to redemption.

With an improved United States team showing greater degrees of poise and talent down the stretch, the Americans avenged a groundbreaking defeat of a year ago by defeating Argentina, 94-86, Tuesday in the second round of the Tournament of the Americas.

Fittingly for the U.S. team, the star was O’Neal — one of only two U.S. players held over from last summer’s team that finished a disappointing sixth at the World Championships.

O’Neal scored 22 points and made one of the biggest plays of the game at the defensive end, blocking a shot by Fabricio Oberto with 1:13 left — a play that led to a fast-break dunk by Vince Carter off a pass from Allen Iverson for an 89-83 lead. It was the only missed shot for Oberto, who finished 8-for-9.

“Regardless of what happens, I’m always going to be marked in the record books as being on the first (U.S.) team to lose using NBA players,” O’Neal said. “That doesn’t matter to me anymore. My goal now, and I think the only way I can see redemption, is to win the gold medal in the Olympics.”

The United States remained undefeated in this Olympic qualifying tournament and improved to 22-0 in qualifiers. The Americans are 64-3 when using professional players in international tournaments, all three of the losses coming last summer.

With a contingent of Argentinian fans singing “Don’t forget what happened last time,” the teams played an intense four quarters.

The score was tied at 74 with 61/2 minutes left before the U.S. team closed the game by scoring 20 of the final 32 points.