BASKETBALL : BRAZIL NEXT VICTIM FOR DREAM TEAM.

Byline: Jim O'Connell Associated Press 

The teams in the Olympic men's basketball quarterfinals include the obvious, the surprising and the sentimental.

Everyone knew the Dream Team, Yugoslavia, Croatia and Lithuania would be among the eight to advance through the round-robin portion of the tournament.

The surprise is China, already assured of its best Olympic finish ever. Then there's Brazil, with its great scorer and five-time Olympian Oscar Schmidt.

Australia and Greece are the other teams that survived the preliminaries to advance to today's quarterfinals.

With the Dream Team in the field, everybody else is playing for the silver. The standings hurt Australia and Croatia in that way because the winner of their quarterfinal will more than likely face the United States in the semifinals, and thus get no better than a bronze medal.

That's what happened to Lithuania in 1992 when it lost to the original Dream Team in the semifinals and then beat the Unified Team for the bronze.

The U.S.-Brazil game will almost certainly be the final game of consequence for Schmidt, who scored his 1,000th Olympic point Sunday night. He has said this is his final games, so it appears he will go yet again without a medal.

A brief look at each of the quarterfinal games:

United States (5-0) vs. Brazil (2-3): The Dream Team cruised through the opening round, winning every game by at least 22 points. Brazil's victories were over South Korea and Puerto Rico. The 38-year-old Schmidt is the tournament's leading scorer at 28 points per game, but defense has been Brazil's main problem as the fewest points it allowed in any game was 89.

Yugoslavia (5-0) vs. China (2-3): Yugoslavia was never really tested in the preliminary round and its NBA players, Predrag Danilovic of the Miami Heat and Vlade Divac of the Charlotte Hornets, have been the key players. Danilovic is averaging 18.8 points, while Divac is grabbing 7.0 rebounds per game. China's improvement continues from a just-as-surprising eighth-place showing in the World Championships in 1994.

Australia (4-1) vs. Croatia (3-2): Australia's only loss was to Yugoslavia, and its up-tempo style has been augmented by some solid rebounding. Andrew Gaze, who played for Seton Hall's 1989 Final Four team, is averaging 22.8 points and point guard Shane Heal is averaging 6.0 assists and 4.4 3-pointers per game. Croatia, the silver medalist in Barcelona, has the second-most recognizable team to the United States. Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls leads the tournament at 8.2 assists per game and also is grabbing 6.4 rebounds. Dino Radja of the Boston Celtics has been strong off the boards at 7.6 per game and Arijan Komazec continues to impress as a scorer at 19.8 per game.

Lithuania (3-2) vs. Greece (3-2):Lithuania won the best game of the tournament, an 83-81 double-overtime victory over Croatia. The team played through nagging injuries to Sarunas Marciulionis of the Denver Nuggets and Arturas Karnishovas, who played at Seton Hall, and all the while Arvydas Sabonis of the Portland Trail Blazers was a force in the middle averaging 16.2 points and 8.8 rebounds.