COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S AND WOMEN’S FINAL FOURS : Razorbacks Will Duke It Out : Game 1: Williamson’s 29 points and 13 rebounds fuel 91-82 victory over Arizona, which ices up from three-point range.

The big hand was on the basketball, so was it Corliss Williamson’s finest hour?

Not necessarily.

“I’ve seen Corliss have a lot of fine hours,” Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson said.

Well then, it was a darned fine 37 minutes that Williamson manufactured Saturday evening when the Razorbacks’ skyline of a front line cast a long shadow over Arizona and took giant steps toward their first NCAA title.

On its way to Monday night’s championship game against Duke, Arkansas beat Arizona, 91-82, in the NCAA semifinals with Williamson acting as tour guide.

Williamson, the player his teammates call “Big Nasty,” certainly was very rude to Arizona. His line was as smooth as his bald head--29 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, two steals, one blocked shot.

“Corliss Williamson was a load,” Arizona Coach Lute Olson said.

It was a virtuoso performance, half melodic, half brutish, worthy of either a Pavarotti or a moving van.

It was Williamson who inspired Arkansas’ game-winning burst, a 12-0 run that turned a 67-62 Wildcat lead into a 74-67 Razorback advantage with 5:58 to go.

Williamson scored on a dunk and twice assisted Clint McDaniel on layups when the double team stuck to Williamson like a wet shirt.

Arizona got no closer than six points the rest of the way.

Olson had seen enough. There is no finer power forward in college, he said.

“You look at him and say ‘What is his weakness?’ ” Olson said. “He’s strong as a bull, he’s got a great shooting touch, he rebounds and he runs. What more is there?”

Apparently nothing. Richardson broke his analysis of Williamson down into simple terms.

“He’s awful good,” Richardson said. “He’s built like a brick house, man.”

Speaking of bricks, Arizona produced a whole lot of them. The Wildcats’ lauded backcourt of Khalid Reeves and Damon Stoudamire was not much of a factor, except in the rebound possibilities they produced with each clanking sound.

Stoudamire missed 19 of 24 shots. Reeves missed 13 of 19. Together, they hoisted 22 three-pointers and missed 20 of them.

Clearly, this was not Arizona’s blueprint for success.

“These two guards have carried us all year long,” Olson said. “When they’ve both been on, we’ve been unbelievably great. When one is off, we’re still good. When they haven’t shot it well as a pair, we’ve had problems.”

Joseph Blair was asked how often Stoudamire and Reeves have shot like that.

“How many times have we lost?” Blair said.

Let the record show the Wildcats finished 29-6. They go no further, despite Blair’s 14 rebounds and 16 points and 12 rebounds by Ray Owes and 14 points in 12 minutes from Corey Williams off the bench.

Maybe the Wildcats should have known it wasn’t going to be their night when the Razorback mascot injured the Wildcat mascot in a playful tussle on the court before the game.

Wilbur, the Wildcat mascot, suffered a knee injury and had to be helped off the court.

Arkansas (30-3) hurt Arizona in the middle. Richardson started his too-big front line of 6-foot-7, 245-pound Williamson, 6-9, 260-pound Dwight Stewart and 6-11, 260-pound Darnell Robinson.

Every time he does this, Richardson hopes his strategy does one thing to opponents.

“I hope they cringe,” he said.

What Arizona really did was miss shots, mainly the result of a tenacious Razorback defense that jealously guarded the three-point line and protected the painted area by treating any invaders with great disdain.

Even so, Stoudamire’s only field goal of the first half, a long three-pointer at the buzzer, pulled Arizona into a 41-41 tie.

With Reggie Geary a pest as usual on defense, Arizona took a 57-52 lead on back-to-back three-pointers by Williams, a reed-thin, 6-7 sophomore. Two free throws by Stoudamire made the score 67-62 with 8:25 to go, but that was the beginning of the end.

Reeves, who had four fouls, was out of the game during the key stretch. He was asked what happened.

“I just sat on the bench,” he said.

On the court, things were popping. Stewart started the rush with a free throw, Blair turned the ball over and Scotty Thurman banked in a two-footer. The Wildcats missed and Stewart came down and fired up a three-pointer. And as the ball went through the basket, Arkansas had the lead for good, 68-65.

Williamson stole a pass at midcourt and dunked, 70-67.

Geary ran over McDaniel for another turnover and McDaniel accepted Williamson’s pass for a layup, 72-67.

Owes fumbled the ball away for the fourth turnover in the streak and Williamson passed to McDaniel again for another layup, 74-67.

Arizona didn’t have anything left. On wobbly legs, the Wildcats made five baskets in the last 9:01 and bowed out.

“They just wore us down, definitely,” said Stoudamire, who tried to find his way out of the slump the only way he knew how.

“All you can do is keep shooting,” he said. “You just have to keep hoping they’re going to start falling. They just never did, not this time.”

Williamson was soft-spoken afterward, which seemed oddly out of character after how he had pushed his way to wherever he wanted to go out on the court.

“That’s one thing you have to do to be a great player,” Williamson said. “You have to step it up when you need to. My teammates were telling me to do it. I love it when someone presents a challenge to me.

“For us to be in the final game is a dream come true, but our dream is not fulfilled yet,” he said.

Duke probably will have something to say about that. But then who is going to argue with somebody called “Big Nasty?”