EUROPEAN BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Croatia Comes Together, Routs Slovenia, 93-70

Croatia, one of the pre-tournament favorites, finally lived up to its billing Wednesday by routing Slovenia, 93-70, in the European Olympic qualifying competition.

Preoccupied with illness, exhaustion and infighting through the first eight days of the tournament, the Croats almost didn’t make this final round, needing to beat Greece in their last qualifying game to advance.

But against Slovenia, Croatia opened a nine-point halftime lead. Then, Drazen Petrovic, a New Jersey Net guard, scored 21 of his 36 points in the second half to help put the game away. Toni Kukoc added 16 for the Croats.

“Before we started this tournament, we played 11 games and beat everybody easily by 25 or 30 points,” Kukoc said.

“But when we came here we played for ourselves. I don’t know why, but I played for myself, Drazen played for himself and Dino Radja played for himself. Now we realize that the only way to win is to play together.”

Meanwhile, Lithuania overcame a nine-point deficit at halftime to defeat Germany, 100-84, and remain the only undefeated team in the tournament at 4-0.

Sarunas Marciulionis, a Golden State Warrior guard, led Lithuania with 40 points and 14 rebounds. Forward Arturas Karnishovas, who plays for Seton Hall, added 18.

In other games, Czechoslovakia eliminated Israel behind Pavel Becka’s 22 points, 89-80, and the Commonwealth of Independent States moved closer to an Olympic berth with an 83-75 victory over Italy.

Results against first-round opponents carry over into this final round, and only the top four finishers in this eight-team round robin will advance to the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Croatia had been a favorite because its lineup included three starters from Yugoslavia’s 1990 world championship team and two players with NBA experience--Petrovic and Boston Celtic center Stojko Vrankovic. In addition, Kukoc (Chicago Bulls) and Radja (Celtics) have been drafted by NBA teams.

But Croatia barely advanced beyond the first round after a grueling warm-up schedule that kept the team on the road for almost two months and a bout of pneumonia sidelined Kukoc for 21 days.

“We have not been together long enough,” said Peter Skansi, Croatia’s coach. “This is not as easy as it looks. We have very good players--true--but we are not perfect. Building a team like this can take two or three years.”

In Slovenia, Croatia found its mirror image, the other breakaway republic that declared itself independent from Yugoslavia in 1991. In fact, Slovenian point guard Jure Zdovc was the playmaker for Yugoslavia until last June, and four others spent time with the former national team. But the talent of Croatia came to the surface in this game.

The CIS, meanwhile, got 21 points and 15 rebounds from Atlanta Hawk forward Alexander Volkov to virtually eliminate Italy.

Although forced to play without Indiana Pacer forward Detlef Schrempf, who was sidelined because of food poisoning, Germany raced to a 49-40 lead over Lithuania at halftime. Led by 13 points from Henning Harnisch, the Germans stayed close until midway through the second.

But even with center Arvidas Sabonis in foul trouble through much of the second half, Lithuania got 24 points from Marciulionis and eventually led by as many as 18.