SEATTLE € Corey Williams made sure there would be no repeat performance.

After hitting a 15-foot jumper to give Arizona a 67-65 lead with 22 seconds left, Williams found himself on Washington guard Jamie Booker with the clock ticking down. Booker took the baseline and tried to lean into Williams to draw a foul, but the senior forward stepped back, and Booker fired a low airball that Ben Davis corralled to give the Wildcats the win in front of 7,381 yesterday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

With the win, the Wildcats avoided a season sweep by the Huskies, who beat Arizona at McKale Center on Feb. 1 when, with the game tied, Jason Hartman hit a foul shot with 1.1 seconds left. Arizona also lost to UCLA on a free throw with one second left.

"We've had so many nightmares," Williams said. "So when he took the shot, I kind of backed off so there would be no question € the last thing I wanted to do was make an obvious foul."

With the road sweep of the Washington schools (Arizona beat Washingon State 72-62 Thursday), the No. 11 Wildcats (23-5 overall, 12-4 in the Pacific 10 Conference) took control of second place in the conference and boosted their hopes for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The pairings will be announced Sunday.

"We've done really well. We finished 6-3 on the road (in the Pac-10), and not many teams could achieve that," UA head coach Lute Olson said. "But there is still a lot of stuff that still needs to go down."

The Wildcats were confident Williams' final shot would go down. After Washington tied the game with 55 seconds to go on a Bryant Boston put-back, Arizona called a timeout and designed a play for Miles Simon. But the Huskies denied the inbound pass to Simon, who had already scored a game-high 24 points. Reggie Geary instead drove the baseline and brought the Husky defense with him, leaving Williams, who finished with 13 points, all alone near the foul line.

"Corey's a senior. He's supposed to make that shot," Davis said. "I would have made it."

"We shoot that 100 times a day in practice," Williams said of his first game-winning shot at Arizona. "If you think about it, it becomes more difficult than it really is."

The Wildcats were paced by Simon. The sophomore guard scored his 24 points on 10-for-13 shooting from the field and a 4-for-4 performance from the line. He also hit his last six shots and scored Arizona's last six points before Williams' game-winner.

Williams created most of his shots by driving the lane and firing over people € something the Wildcats were able to do effectively all game long. As it turned out, they had to. Arizona shot just 20 percent (3 of 15) from 3-point range while connecting on 48.1 percent overall.

"I just tried to penetrate on their guards today. That was a big factor," Simon said.

The Huskies were most effective when 7-foot, 270-pound Todd MacCulloch was in the game. He dominated inside with 13 points and five rebounds, while tapping many rebounds to his teammates as well. The problem was that he was in the game for only 12 minutes € and just three minutes in the second half € because of foul trouble.

"Todd is still learning the game," UW head coach Bob Bender said. "He's learning you've got to give up the easy basket instead of taking the foul. You've got to back off a little."

Davis had foul trouble of his own, finishing with six points and five rebounds in 24 minutes.

With MacCulloch on the bench, Arizona stretched a 41-39 halftime lead to 53-45 with 14 minutes to play, but the Huskies recovered.

Senior forward Mike Amos scored five points down the stretch and, Boston scored six of his 10 points.

Jason Hamilton tied MacCulloch for team-high honors with 13 points, while Mark Sanford, the Pac-10's fifth-leading scorer with 17.3 points a game, was hounded by Joe McLean and scored just three.