COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENTS : Missouri and Arizona: Destiny Is Final Four : West: Both have special incentive for winning regional final at the Sports Arena.

Missouri and Arizona run into each other today at the Sports Arena to decide which, as the best in the West, will be going to the Final Four.

It’s not going to be easy for either of them. The West Regional final features a No. 1-seeded Missouri team that prides itself on doing the dirty work. If somebody mentions one more time how hard the Tigers work in the trenches, change those uniforms to overalls.

After handing out assorted bumps and bruises while touring the Big Eight undefeated, Missouri is 28-3 and contemplating the large issues of our time:

--Do they dislike reporters as much as it seems?

--Where does Norm Stewart get his sense of humor?

--And most important, are they a team of destiny?

“I sure hope so,” said forward Jevon Crudup.

Actually, it’s a faith Missouri shares with Arizona. The Wildcats are 28-5 and looking for some sort of atonement after getting knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round the last two years.

If Missouri busily plumbs the depths of disdain for the media for allegedly slighting the Tigers this season, it probably can’t touch how Lute Olson reacts when the subject is Arizona’s recent tournament failings.

“We’ve got people in here just waiting for us to fall and start shooting arrows again,” Olson said at a news conference Friday.

“Cheap shots are part of this whole thing. I don’t even want to respond to that. There are people who are not successful who hate to see people be successful.”

Olson’s Arizona teams have lost five first-round games since 1985, but the fact that this group is one victory away from the Final Four has not eluded center Joseph Blair or anyone else.

Blair knew something was up when Olson brought former Arizona star Sean Elliott to a practice to talk about how great it was to be in the 1988 Final Four.

Blair said he was totally underwhelmed.

“Blahdy, blah, blah,” he said. “I didn’t want to hear about it, I want to be in it. I guess it was supposed to be some kind of motivational speech or something.”

The motivation for both teams is plenty, not the least being a degree of respect they say has been missing.

Guard Melvin Booker, one of eight seniors playing for Stewart, said it’s been a habit for people to forget about anything happening in Columbia.

“We’ve been overlooked all season,” Booker said. “That’s cool with me. I’ll take it. Keep picking us to lose. I’ll take it.

“I’ll take the underdog’s role,” he said. “Who’s this Missouri team? They’re still trying to figure out. I’ll take that, to the end of the season.”

The respect issue stems not only from questions about Missouri’s No. 1 seeding, but also from a couple of troubling defeats, one by Notre Dame and the other when Arkansas won by 52 points.

So what?

“People got too wrapped up with that,” Crudup said of Arkansas’ 120-68 victory. “You’re going to have nights like that.”

That’s a positive slant. Looking at it that way, Missouri fell only 18 three-pointers short of victory.

Of course, Arizona is trying to keep its own skeletons in the closet, like losing to Washington. But the Wildcats won their Notre Dame game by 19.

Central to the matchup is how well Arizona hangs with Missouri’s active front line and how each team’s guards play on defense.

Booker, Julian Winfield and Paul O’Liney are the Tiger trio, and they go up against Arizona’s three-deep backcourt of Khalid Reeves, Damon Stoudamire and Reggie Geary.

Missouri needs to play Arizona’s backcourt a lot better than it did Syracuse’s. Missouri won in overtime, 98-88, but Adrian Autry had 31 points and Lawrence Moten 29 for Syracuse.

Stewart said he expects to equal the effort against Reeves and Stoudamire.

“If we can do as well, we ought to hold them somewhere in the 60s,” Stewart deadpanned.

At the same time, Arizona is invigorated by its 82-70 victory over Louisville when Reeves dropped 29 points on the Cardinals and Blair made life miserable for Clifford Rozier by bumping him around.

Blair said he was glad it was a tournament game.

“If those had been Pac-10 officials, our whole team would have fouled out,” he said.

How well Blair bumps with Crudup and Kelly Thames is going to be important, but the big scene will be in the backcourt once again with Booker, Reeves and Stoudamire.

Booker has been getting a lot of mileage out of the cap he has been wearing this week, the one with “Final Four” stitched on the front.

But why wear it? Is it for inspiration? Is he looking too far ahead? Is his head cold?

“I just need a haircut,” Booker said.

When it comes to grooming, though, there is only one king and it is Stoudamire. A self-proclaimed neatnik, Stoudamire broke his teammates up when he took a full-sized iron with him on a team trip to Australia last off-season.

The time was right to give Stoudamire a nickname. It was entirely appropriate, Blair said.

“Iron man,” Blair said.

Blair, himself, is story waiting to be told. Just don’t call him Joe.

“Joe is a car mechanic,” he said.

And Joseph?

“Joseph is a tall, handsome, basketball player,” he said.

The 6-9, 240-pound sophomore from Houston has three tattoos. “Baby Blair,” to distinguish him from his older brother, “Big Blair,” is tattooed on his shoulder. The initials JB are tattooed just above his navel. And a tattoo of a basketball zipping through a hoop is on his chest.

That one may be his favorite. Blair likes to stand in front of the mirror and look at the ball-and- hoop tattoo. “If that doesn’t inspire you, what can?” Blair said.

What indeed? Somebody may get tattooed today, but even it’s a close game, one thing is certain. No matter what the score, the winner is going to the Final Four.