Is this heaven?

No, it's Harvard.

Something very special has been happening during the women's basketball team's up-and-down season. When a young woman from Davenport, Iowa, steps onto the court, all eyes focus on her.

Her name is Erin Maher, and she has turned heads by launching an awesome aerial attack that has won her three Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors. And Maher is known around the country now, as well. She is ranked second among Division I players in three-point shooting with a 53 percent clip.

"Erin is an impact player," Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney Smith says. "When you play Harvard, you have to play Erin. If you come off Erin, you're dead."

Maher has brought a stellar hoops record with her to Harvard. Basketball has been a part of her life since she began to tear up boys' leagues in third grade.

The 5-ft., 8-in. guard could always shoot. Maher was the runner-up in the Elks National Free Throw Contest when she was nine, and she won the Pepsi Hot Shot national championship in seventh grade.

In the seventh and eighth grades at Assumption High School, Maher's shooting skills made her a dangerous weapon in an unusual style of girl's basketball that remains today only in parts of Iowa and Oklahoma.

"I played six-on-six basketball for my first two years of high school until eighth grade," Maher says. "There were three players on offense and three players on defense, and you couldn't cross half-court. I liked that style of play because I got to shoot."

And shoot she did, going on to receive All-State honors as a senior while averaging 24.7 points per game. Maher is still the second highest career scorer in Iowa.

Hoisting up the jumper is undoubtedly Maher's strong point. Usually the first person off the bench for the Crimson, she leads the team in three-point shooting percentage and field goal percentage (54 percent), and she has missed only one free throw all season for a team-leading 96 percent from the line. Maher is also second on the team in scoring, averaging 9.3 points per game.

Erin setting herself behind the three-point stripe and lofting a spiraling ball through the cylinder conjures up images of another great perimeter shooter sinking threes for "The Men in Green" under the banner-laden rafters of Boston Garden.

"She's one of the purest shooters I've ever coached," Delaney Smith says. "Her range is much further than the three-point arc. She limits the type of defense an opponent can use."

Maher certainly creates instant offense for the Crimson, but achieving scoring records is not her goal.

"Every year, I just want to improve," Maher says. "I want to know that I have worked hard and contributed to the team. If other teams know that I can shoot, I can drive and dish the ball to the open player. I also want to work on my defense. It's almost a mind game. I want to improve my foot speed and get better at anticipating the pass."