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."

Ultimately, Harvard could not contain Dartmouth's inside game or hold on to the ball. Amazingly, the Big Green went 32-of-43 from the line, while Harvard went only 3-of-5.

Part of this discrepancy can be explained by the intentional Crimson fouling at the end of the game, but only a small part--when Dartmouth increased its lead from 44-41 to 61-46 in the second Frame, 13 of the Big Green's 17 points came from behind the charity stripe.

In addition, Dartmouth's suffocating defense combined with Harvard's lazy passing to give a 24-15 edge in turnovers to the Crimson.

"They're whole philosophy is attack, and they're very quick," Delaney Smith said. "We should have used passing fakes more."

Junior center Tammy Butler put the exclamation point on her dominant season by leading Harvard with 16 points and 14 rebounds.

She set Harvard single-season records with both 478 points (breaking the previous mark of 449 set last year by both Erin Maher '93 and Debbie Flandermeyer '93) and 343 rebounds (crushing the old board mark of 258), which she set last year.

Sophomore guard Elizabeth "Buzz" Proudfit also contributed 15 points and four rebounds for what was a balanced Crimson scoring effort.

Dartmouth, coming off an 8-18 year, came into the game tied for the lvy lead with defending champion Brown. Coupled with the Bears' 66-61 win over Yale last night, the Big Green earned a share of the lvy title.

Dartmouth will play Brown this Sunday at Briggs Cage at 2 p.m. on Sunday to determine which team will receive the first-ever automatic lvy League bid to the NCAA Tournament. The women's field expanded to 64 teams this year, giving lesserregarded conferences like the Ancient Eight a shot at the national title.

But for Harvard's three seniors, tri-captains Frey, Katie Philips and Katherine Crisera, this game marked a disappointing end to their collegiate careers.