All the teams finishing atop from the first round collected triumph to advance from the quarterfinals on Wednesday at the men's basketball competitions of the Beijing Olympic Games.

The United States trounced Australia 116-85 to set up a semifinal meeting with Argentina, which ousted Greece 80-78. Lithuania crushed China 94-68 to face Spain, which edged off Croatia 72-59.

Wednesay's matches saved the best for the last as Argentina survived a demolition when Vasileios Spanoulis missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer with five seconds left.

Manu Ginobili scored Argentina's final four points to put the defending champions ahead by 80-75 with 46.8 seconds to go before Panagiotis Vasilopoulos buried a 3-pointer to cut it short to 80-78 with 30.5 seconds left.

Ginobili, who had the game-high 24 points, missed a three-pointer to leave the opportunity to the Greeks. Spanoulis' attempts bounced high and Luis Scola grabbed down the defensive rebound for Argentina's victory.

Kobe Bryant had the game-high 25 points and grabbed five rebounds to lead the U.S. to a hard-fought win, in which 51 fouls were called.

The US proved no less than the top long-ranged shooting teams in the world as they buried 12 out of 29 three-pointers for the fourth over-100 game in the tournament.

LeBron James had 16 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three assists while Carmelo Anthony adding 15 points and five rebounds for the unbeaten U.S. side.

Patrick Mills led Australia, which finished seventh in the tournament, with 20 points.

Leading on 55-43 after the break, the US pulled it away with a 14-0 run in the third quarter to take an unsinkable 89-61 lead.

Yao Ming had 19 points and seven rebounds and Yi Jianlian contributed 11 points and nine rebounds but the Chinese outside shooters were shut down by suffocated defence of Lithuania.

Sarunas Jasikevicius shot 5-out-of-6 from behind the arc to lead Lithuania, which were 13-out-of-31 on 3-pointers, with 23 points and six assists.

China shot only 4-out-of-21 on 3-pointer, the worst in their six matches of the tournament, in which they finished eighth.

Lithuania capitalized 12 steals with 16 fast-break points, compared to China's zero. They concluded every quarter with a 3-pointer when China failed to contain Lithuania's sharp shooters.

World champions Spain had little trouble to handle Croatia thanks to Pau Gasol's 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Spain, which are seeking for their first medal finishing in 24 years, led by double-digit number for most of the game and held a fourth-quarter rally of Croatia with a 12-0 run to claim the victory.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2008)