In a do-or-die battle to reach the next stage, it was the South Americans who appeared to relish silencing a vocal, packed crowd at Wukesong Arena in Beijing.
Basketball, along with football, is the most popular sport in China. But that has failed to result in a top-class team and there is no current successor to trailblazer Yao.
The former Houston Rockets All-Star, now 38, took over as head of the Chinese Basketball Association in 2017 and set about reforming an entrenched state development system that he says badly needs an overhaul.
He might want to ramp up his development plan after this demoralising showing on home soil, with the Venezuela defeat giving China a record of one victory - over the Ivory Coast - against two losses.
Coach Li Nan said China never fully recovered from Monday's crushing 79-76 overtime defeat to Poland.
"We tried to get our mentality right, to play with confidence, but something was left over from that game," he said, calling the Venezuela defeat "a very tough loss".
Even neutrals had expected the hosts to successfully negotiate a weak Group A, where Venezuela joined Poland in the last 16, while a public of 1.4 billion was as expectant as ever.
China, ranked 30th in the world, placed their hopes largely on the shoulders of a towering front court of three seven-footers: Yi Jianlian, Zhou Qi and Wang Zhelin.