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SECTION THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2001 www.philly.com in i vX II llff 11 II Bill TOf Lyon Sixers continue mastery on road At the line, a battle of the bulges Toomer lets hands do talking i "ii nr-- mmt By Jerry Brewer INQUIRER STAFF WRITER TAMPA, Fla. Enough, he told himself. You are better than this, he told himself. Shut up and do something about it, he told himself. Take kung fu and get better, he told himself.

Show them your worth, instead of telling it, he told himself. Then the voice inside Amani Toomer's head was evicted. Serenity became the new tenant. "I just stopped worrying about being the guy on the sideline, moping and complaining," the New York Giants' wide receiver said. "I stopped worrying about the things I had no control over." Toomer cannot forget that day of revelation.

It was Dec. 27, 1997. For the Giants, it was Choke Bowl. In the NFC wild-card playoff game against Minnesota, they blew a 19-3 halftime lead and a 22-13 lead with two minutes remaining in the game and lost, 23-22. A promising start to the playoffs exploded and left a smoke thick with doubt and finger-pointing and miscommunica-tion.

Toomer, in his second year, was a returner and back-up receiver who caught 16 passes in the regular season, though he thought he should be starting and catching about 70. "I felt like I should've done something in that game," he said. "I let the team down. I felt like I let myself down. I moped the whole game.

See TOOMER on E4 Any time you get two guys that big going against each other, you're always in danger of a lot of friction, and maybe a grease fire. Glenn Parker, 312 pounds TAMPA, Fla. His opponent, Tony Siragusa, weighs 342. "Yeah, next to him," Glenn Parker said, beaming, "I look svelte." They are the dancing bears of the Super Bowl, and they will grunt and lean on each other, grunt and shove, grunt and jab, grunt and grunt. "He's a better talker than I am," Parker, the left guard for the East Rutherford Giants, said of Siragusa, the defensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.

Together, they occupy the better part of 700 pounds. For perspective: If you are, ahem, 6-foot-4 and 230, you can stand behind Parker and no longer be visible. Siragusa is even bigger. He looks like he has swallowed something very large. Whole.

Theirs will be a scrum fought in a phone booth. Inches, let alone yards, will fetch a high price. Parker can tell you exactly how the loser will feel. As a member of the buzzard's luck Buffalo Bills, he participated in four Super Bowl defeats. All in a row.

The first one hurt the most because it was the closest. The Giants were leading the Bills, 20-19, and on the game's last play Buffalo attempted a 47-yard field goal. Glenn Parker was on the field. "The first thing I told myself was, 'Don't jump offside. Don't make this a longer kick than it already The second thing I said was, 'Block The kick was long enough.

But it was, and forever will be, wide See PARKER on 4 Clutch baskets in the 4th period and 0T beat the Rockets for a team-record 12th straight road win. By Ashley McGeachy INQUIRER STAFF WHITER HOUSTON They gutted it out. No way, with less than four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, should the 76ers have won last night at Houston. A safer bet was that Ray Lewis would have a controversy-free day in Tampa, with no questions about that sordid night in Atlanta a year ago. But things happen.

Great teams win, even when the odds say no way. Even with a horrendous shooting night, with seemingly half the team hurting from one Sixers 85 ailment or anoth-Rockets 84 er, the Sixers won. Yes, they won. In overtime. The Sixers beat the Houston Rockets, 85-84, to set a franchise record with 12 consecutive road victories and improve to 19-4 on the road, 32-10 overall.

It was a great, gutsy, gritty effort. In overtime, the barricade was lifted from the Sixers' rim. After George Lynch followed Aaron McK-ie's miss, Allen Iverson buried a three-pointer for a 75-70 lead, the Sixers' largest since the second quarter. When Steve Francis answered with a three, McKie scored on the baseline, followed by Iverson. Two minutes later, the Sixers' improbable victory was secure.

When Iverson missed a free throw and Tyrone Hill followed it for an 81-76 advantage, the Sixers smiled for the first time since arriving in Houston. "It's a 'W and I'll take it," Iverson said. "We never give up," added center Theo Ratliff, who finished with 14 points, 5 blocked shots and 9 rebounds. "We know when we step out on the floor that our job is to continue to try to play aggressive and do the things we need to do to win." Iverson finished 9 of 28 from the field with 32 points, including five in overtime. Hill, back after a one-game absence because of vertigo, grabbed 19 rebounds one shy of tying a career high and Lynch added 12.

As a team, the Sixers shot 36.5 percent from the field. Coach Larry Brown credited the defense for keeping the Sixers in the game, then the out-of-nowhere 62.5 percent shooting in overtime. See SIXERS on E6 BILL KOSTROUN Associated Press Amani Toomer strikes a pose after a Giants practice. The wide receiver has emerged from coach Jim Fassel's doghouse and become a Super Bowl threat against the Ravens' run-stopping defense. Success hindering coaching candidates Baltimore vs.

N.Y. Giants 6 p.m. Sunday in Tampa, Fla Channel 3. Line: Baltimore by 3 Op Aj I By Mike Bruton INQUIRER STAFF WRITER TAMPA, Fla. The Super Bowl doesn't just crown the NFL's champion, it also produces the new head coaches in the league.

The focus is heightened this year because of three strong candidates among the staffs of the two teams. Additionally, this has brought focus on one facet of the hiring ritual: A league rule forbids other teams from talking to coaches involved in the playoffs until their teams are eliminated. Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis and New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox and offensive coordi- Herman Edwards away from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week. Because increased exposure from the playoffs and the time-honored practice of promoting coordinators to head jobs are both major factors in who gets hired as NFL head coaches, there are many who believe the league needs to change the no-interview rule. "Something needs to be done to that effect," said Lewis, 42, believed by many to be the most-coveted of the three, "because it does penalize both the coaches who are still playing and the assistant coaches who are out of work and looking for a job.

They kind of get See COACHES on E4 John Fox Sean Payton Marvin Lewis Inside Bill Parcells arrives in Tampa and wishes his old team well. He has no plans to coach again. E4. Donovan McNabb gets mentioned with NFL's best. E5.

Marty Mornhinweg named head coach in Detroit. E5. Francisco offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg to replace interim coach Gary Moeller. The New York Jets were also considering one or more of the three for their vacant head coaching slot but decided not to wait and hired assistant head coach nator Sean Payton all are considered prime choices for openings with the Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns. The Detroit Lions were looking for a head coach until yesterday, when they gave up on waiting to talk to the Super Bowl participants and hired San Villanova posts upset over UConn on road Capriati pulls upset, gains Australian final 7 1 She earned a shot at Martina Hingis in the final.

Hingis finished ousting both Williams sisters. By Steven Wine ASSOCIATED PRESS MELBOURNE, Australia Jennifer Capriati advanced to a Grand Slam final for the first time in her tumultuous career, upsetting defending champion Lindsay Davenport, 6-3, 6-4, today in the Australian Open. The 12th-seeded Capriati's opponent in the final Saturday will be No. 1 Martina Hingis, who played almost flawless tennis to rout No. 3 Venus Williams, 6-1, 6-1 in 53 minutes.

The most lopsided loss of Williams' career ended her bid for a third consecutive Grand Slam title. Hmgis, who edged Serena Williams in the quarterfinals', swept the sisters in the same tournament for in front of a disbelieving sellout crowd of 16,294. For Villanova (12-5 overall, 4-2 Big East Conference), this was its most significant road win of the season. The Huskies (13-6, 2-4) lost for the fourth straight time and suffered their initial home defeat after 10 consecutive wins here or at their campus gym in Storrs. The Wildcats shot 35 percent from the field and had 18 turnovers.

They were only 2 for 18 from three-point range. Their guards shot 6 for 25. But they converted 28 of 33 free throws and let their rebounding and defense do the talking for them for most of the night. The Huskies shot only 33.9 percent from the field and had 18 turnovers. Albert Mouring, their second-leading scorer, poured in eight points in the first four-plus minutes but had only four the rest of the way against a box-and-one defense See VIliANOVA on E2 the first time.

Capriati had lost four previous semifinal matches in major tournaments, with three of those losses in 1990 and '91, when she was a teen prodigy. That was before her hiatus from tennis in the mid-1990s because of drug and personal problems. "It's taken me a long time to get to the final of a Grand Slam," Capriati, 24, said. "It's something I really wanted." Capriati avenged her loss to Davenport in last year's semifinals, and she did it by hitting boldly from the baseline. Her blistering returns put the second-seeded Davenport on the defensive, and the defending champion quickly began to look discouraged, hanging her head and swatting at the court with her racket between points.

"Maybe Lindsay underestimated me in Iflie beginning," said Capriati, who was relaxed and laughed often See AUSTRALIAN OPEN on E3 Bradley led the way with 20 points and 15 rebounds as the Wildcats outhustled the slumping Huskies. By Joe Juliano INQUIRER STAFF WRITER HARTFORD, Conn. It's no secret that Villanova has had a shaky January, and some of the statistics from last night's game against Con-, necticut looked Villanova 70 more ominous UConn 59 than the Wildcats have seen in previous contests. But the Wildcats worried about one number against the 24th-ranked Huskies the score. So despite their worst shooting game of the season, the Cats gritted their teeth, outhustled the home team to most of the l(iose balls rolling across the floor df the Hartford Civic Center, and upset UConn, 70-59, i A i FN if JERRY LODRK3USS Inquirer Staff Photographer St.

Joe's Bill Phillips takes care not to foul Rhode Island's Andre Scott, who is about to snare a rebound. The Hawks won, 82-67, last night. E2..