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BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 7 : Lithuania Collapses This Time Around : Men’s basketball: CIS wipes out 19-point deficit in second half to beat former teammates, 92-80.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Half of Alexander Gomelsky’s 1988 gold medalists, now playing for Lithuania, met the other half, now playing for the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Imagine Gomelsky’s confusion.

“I like it, Communism breakup,” the former Soviet basketball coach said Friday after the CIS came from 19 points behind in the second half to win, 92-80. “This is nice. Everybody like it. Terrible system. Crazy system. This is experiment for 300 million people.

“But I don’t like it, this team break up.”

Basically, Lithuania got Gomelsky’s guards plus center Arvidas Sabonis.

The CIS got the rest of the starting front line, forwards Alexander Volkov, a former Atlanta Hawk, and Valery Tikhonenko (game-high 31 points Friday).

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Lithuania won the emotional first meeting last month in the European qualifying tournament. Afterward, Lithuania’s Waldemaras Chomicius, the former Soviet sharpshooter, said they had hoped to win by 52 points--one for every year their nation had been part of the Soviet Union.

The Lithuanians thought it was emotional anyway.

Volkov later said he couldn’t imagine any of the Lithuanians harboring hard feelings toward any of them.

And Chomicius’ comment?

“Maybe he was joking,” Volkov said.

Both teams started Friday’s game 3-0 in Olympic play.

The CIS started a little after the Lithuanians, actually. Lithuania took a 9-0 lead and built it to 53-34 early in the second half.

Then the Lithuanians began a series of the on-court debates so popular in Europe, with Sabonis engaging in anguished conversation about not getting the ball with guards Sarunas Marciulionis and Rimas Kurtinaitis, and everyone bashing the kid in the starting lineup, young Arturas Karnisovas of Seton Hall.

Before you could say “premature celebration” in Lithuanian, the CIS zoomed past them.

With the CIS ahead, 81-80, Karnisovas missed a fast-break layup off a pass from Marciulionis. Lithuania got the ball back, but Marciulionis, the Warrior guard trying to hoist his team onto his broad shoulders, turned it over.

At the other end, guard Igor Miglinieks made a three-point basket.

The CIS scored the next eight points, too, and the rivalry that is more than a rivalry had a new chapter.

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Gomelsky said he had players of seven nationalities on his old Soviet team and maintained that they all got along.

“This is basketball, not politics,” he said. “If my government sent troops to Afghanistan, they not ask, ‘Gomelsky, what is your opinion?’ Same with you and Vietnam.”

Sure enough, when the game was over, the Lithuanians and the CIS players gathered at midcourt, shook hands, then turned and waved to the crowd, a ritual international teams customarily perform separately.

It was as heartwarming as it was brief. This was basketball, finally, not politics.

Earlier in the evening, Croatia defeated Germany, 99-78, to take over sole possession of second place behind the United States in Group A with a 3-1 record.

In other games Friday, Angola, the first U.S. victim here, defeated Spain, 83-63; Puerto Rico beat Venezuela, 96-82; and Australia downed China, 88-66.

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