Jimmy Johnson promising victory over the San Francisco 49ers in this year's NFC Championship game? Perhaps Joe Namath guaranteeing a Jet victory over the Colts in Super Bowl III?

Well, not quite.

This guarantee was made by Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith after the Harvard women's basketball team closed out a disappointing (7-19, 4-10 lvy) season with a 77-64 loss to Dartmouth last night at Briggs Cage. And this guarantee was a little broader than its more famous predecessors--Delaney-Smith guaranteed that the Crimson would never be this bad again.

"I guarantee that this will never happen again," Delaney-Smith said. "We have a tremendous group of young people, and we have strong players coming in."

Coming into this year, this type of guarantee was the last thing anyone would have expected. Harvard has the best cumulative record in the lvies since 1987, and the Crimson had not had a losing season since 1984-1985, Delaney-Smith's third year at the helm.

But, to put it mildly, this year strayed from precedent. The Crimson finished second to last in the lvies, and had its worst record since 1983-1984. Even more startling, Harvard often wasn't close--in its 10 lvy losses, the average margin of defeat was 15.1 points.

Last night's game against the Big Green (11-3, 16-10) typified the Crimson's season. Burdened by inconsistency and the lack of a strong inside game, Harvard came close at times, but was never able to mount a steady challenge.

The Crimson got off to a horrible start. Barely four minutes into the game, with the "land of the free and the home of the brave" still drifting into the night, Harvard found itself behind 16-2. During this spurt, Dartmouth was led by junior center Ilsa Webeck's eight inside points and senior guard Betsy Gilmore's three steals.

Perhaps shocked, perhaps embarrassed, the Crimson fought uphill for the rest of the half. Playing better defense, it cut the lead to 25-20, after sophomore guard Amy Reinhard hit her second consecutive trey from well beyond the stripe. What woke the Crimson up?

"Pride got us back in the game," explained Delaney-Smith.

The first half ended with Dartmouth leading, 33-26.

Harvard came out of the locker room much more focused in the second half. Playing better interior defense, holding on to the ball better and forcing a more wide-open style of play to accentuate its athleticism (and hide its lack of size), the Crimson climbed within three at the 12:55 mark, 44-41, on the strength of another Reinhard trifecta.

Then, with the momentum at its back, it happened again--the Big Green ran off nine straight points in the next four and a half minutes, as Harvard turned the ball over four times and only managed three shot attempts, all three pointers.

After that lapse, the Crimson never got closer than nine, and the game became another oft-practiced exercise in intentional fouling as the clock ran down.

"We came back, and as usual, it slipped away," senior co-captain Cara Frey said about her last collegiate game. "It was fitting that the season ended like this."