COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP GAME : After Big Country, Bruins Get Big Nasty : Arkansas: Williamson says he’s really ‘Big Softy,’ but only off the court.

Big, nasty, punches teammates in the chest before games, and several still have the bruises to prove it. Has a pet boa constrictor named Little Nasty.

Meet Arkansas’ Corliss Williamson, a 6-foot-7, 245-pound boulder in the middle of UCLA’s road to glory.

Shy, soft-spoken, humble, smiles easily. . . .

What kind of terror weapon is this?

“Off the court, I’m kind of a nice guy,” Williamson said Sunday, laughing. “You can call me Big Nicey or Big Softy, something like that.

“But as (for) being Big Nasty, that’s just the attitude I have out there on the basketball court. I want to be the best player out there. I want to be the meanest, the toughest. That’s where Big Nasty comes into effect.”

With apologies to Sidney Moncrief, Williamson may be the greatest player the state of Arkansas ever produced and he’s the one Hog who can live up to Coach Nolan Richardson’s bombast.

Richardson, a basso profundo with the flair of a wrestling promoter, can make his modestly talented point guard, Corey Beck, sound like John Stockton. Richardson made up the name Big Nasty, and when Rollin’ Nolan starts talking about his star, you want to tether him to the ground to make sure he doesn’t soar away like a balloon.

“Is there a good physical match for Corliss?” someone asked at Sunday’s news conference.

“Not on this earth,” Richardson rumbled.

“He says that I have created a monster and I probably have. . . . I don’t know of anybody, 6-7 or 6-6, 255 pounds, who can get in the weight room and make all these great football players look like they don’t even exist.

“This is the only guy I hope I will ever know that can work out with weights 15 minutes before the game and still play. . . .

“I said, ‘You cannot pick up another weight.’ You should have seen him. You thought I had taken away his whole life.”

As a freshman at tiny Russellville (Ark.) High, Williamson played against Shaquille O’Neal’s San Antonio Cole in a game that left an indelible mark on young Corliss: “He caught the ball one time in the lane and he dunked it so hard, the gym was gonna fall down.”

But it was someone closer to home who turned Williamson into a menace to society, his own father, Jerry.

“He used to talk about me all the time,” Williamson said. “I’d be playing games and guys would be pushing on me and I wouldn’t do anything back. He’d say, ‘You need to start using your elbows, start pushing back. You hit them one time, they’ll get off of you.’ ”

Father knows best. Corliss, bristling dutifully and already starting to bulk himself up, became a McDonald’s All-American and went off to the bright lights of Fayetteville, where players had the benefit of a sparkling weight room, not to mention two strength coaches. He was home.

By the end of his sophomore season, the Hogs were national champions, and he was Southeastern Conference player of the year and most valuable player of the Final Four.

He could have become an NBA lottery pick but barely considered it. The Hogs had most of their team back, and this season promised to be too much fun to miss.

Of course, it wasn’t.

It started with a 104-80 bombing by Massachusetts, in which, Williamson said, the Colonials’ 6-5 power forward, Lou Roe, “just point-blank outplayed me.”

Opponents double-teamed Williamson. He looked so frustrated in a home loss to Alabama that Jerry and Bettye, who were up from Russellville, drove the one hour 45 minutes home, turned around the next day and drove back.

“They knew I was very mad,” Williamson said. “They drove back up the next day to practice, and then we went out to eat. My mom, she was kinda nice about it, she was talking to me, being sweet: ‘Now, don’t worry about it.’

“But my dad, he kind of got on me. Told me I needed to start playing like a man.”

Let’s face it, what does a mom know about raising a power forward? Williamson went back to his manly game, and the Hogs made it back to the NCAA final, where he announced plans to bench-press the pride of UCLA: “I’d like to outplay Ed O’Bannon. That’s just personal pride.”

At this level, it’s a big, nasty world, and the Bruins have to deal with it.