COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S FINAL FOUR : Arkansas: Defending champion Razorbacks live dangerously but survive by beating North Carolina, 75-68.

Arkansas’ season of living on the edge will see another day, and the Razorbacks can thank Corliss Williamson’s second-half wake-up call and Clint McDaniel’s four clutch free throws down the stretch for the extra time.

Proving once again that it is just as important to be lucky as to be good, Arkansas made things interesting by almost squandering an 11-point lead in the final three minutes before holding off North Carolina, 75-68, in their semifinal game before 38,540 Saturday at the Kingdome.

The Razorbacks, who have made a habit of dramatic victories in this year’s tournament, will try to become only the fifth team to win consecutive titles when they meet UCLA in Monday’s championship game.

“We’re back where we wanted to be when the season began,” Arkansas point guard Corey Beck said. “But we sure didn’t make it easy for us to get here.”

That might be the understatement of the tournament.

In reaching the final, Arkansas has had to come from behind in all five tournament victories--including two overtime games and a one-point first-round victory.

Against North Carolina, the Razorbacks were able to hold the Tar Heels without a field goal for nearly 12 minutes as they rallied from a seven-point second-half deficit, with Williamson bouncing back from an invisible first half to score 19 of his game-high 21 points.

“He just put us on his shoulders and took us home,” said Beck. “We did a horrible job of getting the ball in to him in the first half, but we did a better job in the second.”

Williamson, last year’s Final Four most outstanding player, made only one of five shots in the first half against Tar Heel sophomore center Rasheed Wallace but dominated his taller opponent in the final 20 minutes.

In one eight-minute span early in the second half, Williamson scored 13 points to help Arkansas erase a 46-39 Tar Heel lead and turn it into a 60-52 advantage for the Razorbacks with nine minutes remaining.

“In the first half, some of the shots I took were kind of bad,” said Williamson, who also grabbed seven of his team-high 10 rebounds in the second half. “After halftime, the team caught me at the right times and I was able to turn around and score.”

Once Williamson began to tire, Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson turned to his two 6-foot-11 sophomores, Darnell Robinson and Lee Wilson, to handle Wallace, who had only two points and three rebounds in the second half.

“We just wore them down,” said Richardson, who has a 22-6 record in eight NCAA tournaments while at Arkansas. “Our shots were not falling in the first half, but the bad thing was that half our shots were threes. I told our players at halftime to remember (North Carolina’s Southeast Regional title victory over Kentucky). I told them that we’re not Kentucky. We have an inside game.”

With Robinson and Wilson dominating in the paint and North Carolina missing one outside shot after another--especially Dante Calabria, who missed nine of 10 attempts from the field--the Razorbacks stretched their lead to 69-58 on a three-point basket by Dwight Stewart with 3:29 left.

That’s when Arkansas decided it was time to allow the Tar Heels back into the game. With All-American forward Jerry Stackhouse slowed with a thigh bruise he suffered on the first possession of the game, North Carolina was able to come back with free throws and a three-point basket by Donald Williams, who led the Tar Heels with 19 points, including five three-point shots.

Two missed front-end one-and-one free throws by Stewart and several forced shots and turnovers by the Razorbacks gave North Carolina the chance to cut Arkansas’ lead to a single point, 69-68, with 47.7 seconds remaining.

After two free throws by McDaniel, the Tar Heels had one last chance to tie the score after Stackhouse, who had 18 points and six rebounds, found Williams, whose three-point shot from the top of the key bounced off the rim with nine seconds remaining.

“We just couldn’t get our shots to fall when we needed them,” Williams said. “We had good looks . . . real good looks, but we just missed them. Maybe, we should have moved the ball around and made them work more on defense.”

For North Carolina Coach Dean Smith, whose team finished the season 28-6, the loss ended his chance to win a fourth national title this year.

“I think that we felt that we would win, especially after (Stackhouse)’s free throws,” said Smith, who has an 830-236 record in 34 seasons. “We didn’t exactly get what we wanted at the end, but still, anytime Donald has a open look, he has the green light.”

For McDaniel, who finished with 13 points, it was only fitting that the Razorbacks reached their second consecutive championship game with a close finish.

“I really don’t know what it is with us, but we like living dangerously,” McDaniel said. “One thing for sure is that since we’ve been there so many times this season, we’re not nervous when things get tight.”