About all you can do when your team plays a solid, aggressive game of basketball and still loses by 26 points is shake your head.

There'll be a lot of head-shaking among the Harvard women's basketball players for the next few days.

An extremely tough Boston College team came to town last night and crushed the Crimson (now 4-2), 75-49, in front of 100 people at Briggs Athletic Center.

"Their program is about three years ahead of us," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney Smith.

If Harvard is as good in three years as B.C. was last night, you can engrave "Harvard" on the 1987-88 Ivy League championship trophy right now.

B.C. (now 5-1) controlled the game from its opening minutes.

Two baskets apiece by Pam Thornton, Ann O'Day, and Kathleen Sweet propelled the Eagles to a quick 12-4 lead in the first three minutes of play.

After a Harvard time out, the Boston College onslaught continued unabated. Scoring on 16 of their first 19 possessions, the visitors ran off to a 31-13 start on route to a 42-19 halftime bulge.

The Crimson was upset by B.C.'s near-perfect initial 15 minutes and the team momemarily lost its composure.

If the squad had maintained a high level of intensity throughout the half, it might have been in striking distance at the start of the second half.

Instead, it was at the bottom of a very deep hole.

The Crimson played as well in the second half as it has all year, but B.C. was simply too talented.

Although the Eagles, who shot 51.4 percent from the floor in the first half, cooled down considerably to 29.3 percent, their man-to-man defense remained as gritty as ever.

The visitors swarmed the ball and forced 27 turnovers, while holding Harvard to 30.6 percent shooting from the floor for the game.

Several times during the final period the hosts pulled to within 20, but each time the Eagles came back with a hoop.

With the year's leading scorers Anna Collins and Sharon Hayes mired in deep slumps (a combined 4-17 on the night), the Crimson were unable to score more than four points in a row all evening.

Without its big two, the squad was powerless to mount the offensive spurt it needed to get back into the game. B.C.'s lead held steady between 20 and 27 the whole half and was 26 when the final buzzer sounded.

After the game, Delaney Smith marveled at her opponents. "They have what every coach wants," she said, "height, speed, experience, and depth."

Delaney Smith was pleased with her team's second half performance.

"We played really well against their starters," she said of Harvard's valient comeback attempts.

The team next does battle against the University of Maine in Orono, Mc., Saturday. The Crimson will then return home to host Dartmouth next Tuesday in its Ivy League opener.

THE NOTEBOOK: Senior Co-Captain Wendy Joseph, starting her first game of the season after being out early with an ankle injury, led the Cantabs in scoring with nine points Freshman Mars Baldauf added eight Last night marked the first game all year that Collins did not score in double figures. She finished with seven. . .Eagle forward Sally Madiera, who wreaked havoc on the Harvard zone all evening, hit for 22. Freshman point guard Barb Keffer led the team in assists for the sixth consecutive game. She now has 32 on the year, last year's team leader had 55.

At Briggs Athletic Center

Boston College: Grant 3-2-8; Madeira 10-2-22; Sweet 1-2-4; O'Doy 5-0-10; Thornton 3-2-8; Houghton 4-4-12; Sullivan 0-0-0; Roach 0-2-2; Haubrich 1-1-3; Robinson 2-0-4; Gervals 1-0-2; Hart 0-0-0; Totals 30-15-75.

Harvard: Hayes 2-0-4; Collins 2-3-7; Joseph 4-1-9; Keffer 2-0-4; Brown 1-2-4; Kelly 1-0-2; Sugrue 2-0-4; Bluestone 1-0-2; Cibotti 1-0-2; Baldauf 3-2-8; Chandler 0-1-1; Smith 0-2-2; Totals 19-11-49.

Halftime: B.C., 42-19.

Attendance: 100.