Traditionally, there have been two ways to evaluate a team's performance in a 15-plus point loss.

First, you can employ the coach/parent/high school yearbook writer approach, take the team's effort, its' improvement over a previous performance and/or the quality of the opponent into consideration, and turn the loss into a positive.

Or second, you can take the approach of everyone else in the world, call a spade a spade, and chalk the blow-out up to experience.

The Harvard women's basketball team's (7-17, 4-8) 73-55 loss to league-leading Brown (16-8, 10-2) last night was such that no one who attended the game--not the coach, the players or even the parents in town for junior parent's weekend--considered the former.

"No one was pleased with how we played tonight," sophomore Elizabeth "Buzz" Proudfit said. "It was the same old story of for us this season--we played hard but we just couldn't put it all together in the end."

"I'm not pleased with this tonight," coach Kathy Delaney Smith said. "We came in here very optimistic--we really thought that we could get a win. But Brown just played better. Period."

Brown did play better, but more specifically, it bruised better. The game was marked throughout by unusually physical play, with the larger (vertically and horizontally) Brown players getting the better of it.

"The refs let a lot go tonight," Delaney Smith said. "Particularly inside. I think some of our players got bruises in the game."

From the very get-go, the Bears showed why they are the team to beat in the league. Going to 6'5" center Martina Jerant repeatedly inside in the first few minutes of the contest, Brown got out to a 23-10 lead.

Harvard battled back, though. Behind the inside post moves of Butler and the outside shooting of sophomore Amy Reinhard, both of whom had six first-half points, the Crimson cut the lead to seven by half-time, 28-21.

Harvard fared even better in the first part of the second half. The team narrowed the gap gradually in the first few minutes with a strong manto-man defense and a good balance between the outside shooting of Proudfit, Reinhard and freshman Jessica Gelman and the inside play of Butler. With 14:30 left in the game, Cara Frey converted an old-fahioned three-point play off a lay-up on a stolen pass to notch the score at 32.

But from there on out, it would be all Brown. The Bears senior forward Kathleen Hill (10 points for the game) and junior guard Tammy Sanchez (12 points) helped put together a balanced attack which buried the Crimson.

Brown scored on four straight possessions to extend the lead from eight to 14 points, and then continued to run away with it, extending the lead to 26 at one point.

The Crimson was reduced in the game's waning minutes to launching a number of three-pointers from near-missile range. A few of them hit to reduce the deficit to 19 in the end.

The Crimson was led in the game by Proudfit, Gelman and Butler, each of whom scored 11 points.

"We just couldn't keep the momentum going," Delaney Smith said. "We were with them until the second, half, but they just took off on us. I'm not even sure what happened."

Harvard will have this afternoon to figure out just what did happen before it takes on arch-rival Yale tonight in Briggs.

"A guess this is one of those games were you just have to appreciate the fact that you worked hard," Delaney Smith said, gritting her teeth.

Then, after shaking her head, she seemed to reconsider: "No, we'll just mark this one up for experience."