On Sunday the Associated Press released its ballots for college basketball's men's and women's Player of the Year and Coach of the Year.

There was a conspicuous omission on the female Player of the Year list--Harvard's Allison Feaster.

Feaster, currently the nation's leading scorer and 14th leading rebounder, has spent her senior season rewriting the Ivy League record books. Unfortunately it appears that those who matter have not taken notice.

I will be the first to admit that the Ivy League is no ACC or SEC, but to let that fact adversely impact the potential recognition an excellent player deserves is inexcusable. Allison Feaster's name should have been put on the AP Ballot, and there are several reasons why.

The primary argument many so-called analysts of college basketball would make against Feaster's ability is that she plays in one of the weakest conferences in the nation. That may be true, but one has to look at the individual player to determine individual awards.

Feaster is one of the best players in the nation, and she would continue to be if she were at a big-time basketball powerhouse like Connecticut or Louisiana Tech. Would she still be averaging 28.5 points per game? Probably not, but she might have gotten her name onto the Player of the Year ballot.

You see, what it boils down to is that Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League get no respect on the national scene. And why should they?

The Ivy League has never won an NCAA Tournament game, and Harvard has lost to top national programs in the last two postseason tournaments. But the reason Harvard lost those games is because it received a terrible seed and faced elite teams that few teams in the nation could defeat.

I dare the NCAA Selection Committee to give Harvard a 12-seed or better. They will never do it because they know that the Crimson would have a great shot at beating whatever team it draws, just as Princeton's men's team shocked UCLA two years ago when the Tigers were seeded 12th.

In fact, the disparity between the treatment of the Ivy League in men's and women's basketball is glaring. Harvard's women, who had received a vote for the AP Top 25 last week, lost that vote this week despite two convincing road victories at Yale and Brown over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Princeton's men move up to No. 8 in the national polls by defeating two teams--Columbia and Cornell--that are worse with respect to men's basketball than Yale and Brown are to women's. Princeton is definitely a great team, but does anyone really believe they are the eighth best team in the country?

So Harvard must unfairly wallow in the disrespect afforded it by the national media, and Feaster must suffer because she chose to get a top-quality education while playing basketball.

In a similar situation to Feaster's is Maine's Cindy Blodgett, who was also left off the ballot. Blodgett, who plays in the weak America East Conference, has led the nation in scoring for the past two seasons and is third in that category this year.

"The fact that Cindy Blodgett is not on [the AP Ballot for Player of the Year] is more of a concern than my not being on there," Feaster said. "She has been one of the top players in the nation for the last three years."

Feaster hasn't been too shabby, either. Feaster was voted a Parade All-American coming out of high school as one of the top 15 rising college freshmen in the nation. She was heavily recruited by several top-10 teams, including North Carolina, Louisiana Tech, Duke and North Carolina State.