Razorbacks

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- "Where do I go now?"It was 8:35 yesterday morning, Nolan Richardson was working on a half-hour nap, and seeking some direction from an Arkansas administrator. He'd already done appearances on the network wake-up shows and lectured the media one last time, and was about to board a bus that would begin the Razorbacks' journey back to Fayetteville, where there will be an official welcome home tonight from more than 20,000 at 5-month-old Bud Walton Arena.Tomorrow, Richardson will get his golf clubs out of storage.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- He came.He saw.They conquered.With their First Fan, Bill Clinton, looking on from a sky box at the Charlotte Coliseum, the Arkansas Razorbacks beat Duke last night at its own game -- the NCAA final -- to win this year's national championship.After overcoming a 10-point deficit early in the second half, and ,, nearly letting a five-point lead slip away, the Razorbacks broke a tie on a three-pointer by sophomore guard Scotty Thurman with 50.7 seconds left and went on to beat the Blue Devils, 76-72.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Twenty seconds into the game, Grant Hill, maybe the most graceful player in college basketball, was on the floor, grimacing after he slipped and landed on his tailbone.After four minutes, Corliss Williamson, who entered as the most accurate shooter in NCAA tournament history, was 0-for-5 from the field and guilty of two turnovers.Initial impressions aside, the two most important players over the course of the NCAA tournament at times elevated the title game into the Hill and Will Show with their wide range of skills.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Scotty Thurman was a few weeks past his 18th birthday when he was charged with taking the load from Corliss Williamson, figuratively and literally.Thurman, the Arkansas swingman who might be the second-best player in the Southeastern Conference, was the other star freshman to arrive in Fayetteville in the fall of 1992.Williamson was the Gatorade National Player of the Year and McDonald's All-American in 1991-92. Thurman was rated among the top 150 prospects in the country, but his Ruston, La., home was off the recruiting path.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Arkansas run lasted a little more than two minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to Arizona.With eight minutes to go in their NCAA semifinal at the Charlotte Coliseum last night, the Razorbacks looked like another team that had taken the Wildcats lightly. Their point guard was saddled with four fouls, they had gone nearly 18 minutes without a three-pointer and they were behind by five.There are many reasons why Arkansas has the best winning percentage in the nation and the favorite's role in this Final Four, however, and most of them surfaced in a 12-0 spurt that lifted the Razorbacks to a 91-82 victory over the Wildcats and into their first NCAA title game.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Arkansas has one of the best benches in the nation, and it would have been deeper if two Baltimore standouts had been able to stay with the Razorbacks.In the summer of 1992, coach Nolan Richardson thought his program was getting Michael Lloyd, an All-American guard out of Dunbar, and Craig Tyson, a Southern grad and a Baltimore Sun Player of the Year, who had taken a circuitous route to Fayetteville.Lloyd's freshman year was the last in which the Southeastern Conference accepted academic non-qualifiers, but when he didn't meet the NCAA's standards for initial eligibility he turned down the Arkansas offer and instead enrolled at San Jacinto (Texas)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Reggie Geary is the least-known member of the three-guard set that got Arizona to the Final Four, but the loquacious sophomore is the one who crystallized the issue as the Wildcats prepared for their NCAA semifinal against Arkansas."

SAN DIEGO -- The guessing game over President Clinton and the Final Four is over.He's going.Clinton had been saying all week he'd like to go to the Arkansas-Arizona semifinal in Charlotte, N.C., but there were lingering doubts about whether he would attend.Those doubts ended yesterday when aides said he would fly straight from his vacation in Southern California to North Carolina tomorrow. Clinton, a diehard Razorbacks fan, was diplomatic when a Wildcats fan shouted "University of Arizona" at him during his morning jog."

DALLAS -- They arrived here as the second-ranked team in the nation and the top seed in the Midwest Regional, but there was this Rodney Dangerfield complex among the Arkansas Razorbacks going into yesterday's game against Michigan."