GOODWILL GAMES : U.S. Team Has Afterlife, Beats Italy, 113-76 : Basketball: Americans shrug off Tuesday’s loss to the Soviet Union and advance to semifinal against Brazil.

The Goodwill Games invited the United States and Italy to play 40 minutes of basketball Wednesday night and, remarkably, the game went off as scheduled. The Americans showed up, showed their faces in public and took the court wearing navy blue, not funeral black.

If Tuesday night’s 92-85 loss to the Soviet Union was the end of the world, as U.S. Coach Mike Krzyzewski sardonically suggested, Wednesday’s 113-76 victory over the Italians was conclusive proof of an afterlife. Todd lived to see a new Day, Alonzo stopped his Mourning and 14 young Americans re-experienced one of the basic beauties of the sport:

Drop a basketball on the floor and, most often, it bounces back.

“I thought we reacted in a very positive manner,” Krzyzewski said. “We’re realizing that we are in a tournament and that the game last night was not for the Olympic championship. We’re now one of four teams in the semis and all of those teams are 0-0.

“That was our goal from the start--to get to the semis. It didn’t matter how we did it.”

Krzyzewski apparently had an easier time selling that premise to his team than to a host country with half a mind to fly Wednesday’s flags at half-mast. For a day, sackcloth was the national fabric.

Do we really want our sons and daughters to grow up in a world where we can’t out-shoot and out-rebound the Soviets?

“It seems to me, this is a real mistake,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s like our whole heritage is on the line every time we step on the court. I don’t understand it.

“I don’t see how you can hang that on the heads of 18-year-olds: ‘You know, you’re shooting that free throw for national pride.’ That’s distasteful to me. I don’t see why that has to be part of the equation . . .

“I have a hard time dealing with burdens. You don’t become a lawyer just because your mother wants you to. And you don’t play basketball just to keep up the national pride. You play basketball because it’s fun.”

This is not to say national pride rode the U.S. bench Wednesday night. Alessandro Gamba, the Italian head coach detected it early on, which wasn’t difficult.

After 3 1/2 minutes, Gamba’s team trailed, 17-2.

“The loss against the Soviet Union put a lot of poison on the teeth of the U.S. team,” Gamba said. “They played 40 minutes of pressure basketball. Our players are not used to this kind of basketball.

“The first 10 minutes, we played very badly, very badly. Bad passes. Bad choices. Bad shooting because of the pressure.

“A big part was because we have no experience. Because of injuries, three-fourths of the players we used tonight had been sitting on the bench all year long. So, when they got the ball under that pressure, the ground under them was shaking, boom, boom, boom, boom. “

The rim rumbled as well whenever an Italian attempted to cast away. Italy shot only 27% from the field in the first half, 35% for the game. Guard Antonello Riva--Italy’s answer to the Soviets’ Valeri Tikhonenko, who shredded the Americans with 30 points Tuesday--converted only six of 16 shots and one of three three-pointers.

Todd Day, the 6-foot-8 Arkansas forward, had an important hand in the matter. Assigned to Riva, Day was advised by Krzyzewski, ever so gently, not to turn the evening into Tikhonenko II.

“Coach told me yesterday that my defense stinks, period,” Day said with a grin. “I had to go out and show the country I can play defense.”

Day did--and he has the body welts to prove it. Riva scored 21 points, but got eight of those on free throws. Wherever Riva went, Day wasn’t far behind, fighting through the same kind of picks and screens that had detoured him against Tikhonenko.

“Guarding a guy like Riva is hard,” Day said. “You get bumped, you get pushed, you get shoved. But you’ve got to keep with it.”

Once Riva was shut down, Italy quickly ran out of scoring options.

The United States led by as many as 23 points in the first half and 41 in the second. The Americans shot 57% as a team and had six players score in double figures, led by Kenny Anderson’s 19 points and Day’s 15 points.

With the victory, the United States concluded Pool B round-robin play at 2-1. In one Friday semifinal, the United States will face Pool A winner Brazil (3-0). In the other, the Soviet Union (2-1) will play Yugoslavia (2-1).

Brazil comes equipped, of course, with Oscar Schmidt, the Pele of South American basketball. Schmidt averaged 42.3 points in the 1988 Olympics and riddled the Americans during Brazil’s upset of the United States in the 1987 Pan American Games.

“Playing Brazil is like playing an NBA team,” Krzyzewski said. “They have nine players, including Schmidt, who have been together for years. They’re as good a team as there is on the international level.”

And the Americans?

“This was only our third game together,” Krzyzewski said. “You have to understand what we’re trying to do here. This is a young team. We’re just trying to learn.”