40.

To the more religious, this number often signifies the number of days Moses spent on Mount Sinai. To the less religious, this often stands for the largest bottle of beer you can buy.

But to the Harvard women's basketball team, this number signifies once again that the Harvard women's basketball team (7-18 overall, 4-9 Ivy) did not give a sustained effort for the full 40 minutes of the game, as it fell of Yale (16-9, 8-5) by a 78-65 count Saturday night at Briggs Cage.

This theme has painfully resonated throughout the season, as game after game Harvard has played well for teasingly most of 40 minutes. Against the Elis, the Crimson was once again in the game until the lapse came.

After co-captain Cara Frey hit a trey with 6:48 to go in the contest to both electrify the crowd and pull Harvard within seven, the Crimson did not score a follow with 1:15 to play--54:33, nine Yale points, and for all practical purposes, one Crimson loss later.

This game was reminiscent of the first meeting of the year between Harvard and Yale.

In that outing, the Elis capitalized on a string of Harvard turnovers to turn a deficit into a eight point lead that they would never relinquish with a little over eight minutes to play. That Yale victory ended a nine-game Harvard winning streak against the hated Elis.

"We can't seem to put 40 minutes together," Butler said. "That's been the story of the season. We go long stretches without scoring, and we take ourselves out of the game."

Why has Harvard been so inconsistent?

"I don't know what the problem is," freshmen guard Jessica Gelman said.

After some hesitation, she elaborated-- "We're young."

That is certainly true. Five of the nine players in Coach Kathy Delaney Smith's rotation are freshmen or sophomores. But the timeless resort to the inexperience excuse is not the whole story.

The Crimson relies heavily on outside shooting, as Butler is its only legitimate inside scoring threat. And as any Vinnie "The Microwave" Johnson fan knows, outside shooting is very streaky.

Unfortunately, Harvard has been inside cooler appliances for most of the year.

The Crimson shot only 38.5 percent (25-65) from the field against Yale and went 0-9 during the Elis' fateful second-half run. Yale, a more physical team, shot 46.2 percent (24-52) from the floor.