PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Missing: one triangle offense. If found, please return to the Harvard women's basketball team as soon as possible.

With its offense off in apparent hibernation, Harvard (6-10, 3-2 Ivy) stumbled on the road to a fourth consecutive Ivy League title last weekend, dropping a pair of conference road games and toppling from the ranks of the unbeaten and from its perch atop the Ivy standings. HARVARD  44 YALE  59 HARVARD  65 BROWN  82

In its first action following a 17-day layoff for final exams, the Crimson fell to Yale (7-11, 2-4), 59-44, on Saturday afternoon and Brown (8-10, 3-3), 82-65, the next day.

The losses mark the most lopsided defeats for Harvard since a season-ending 72-48 defeat at the hands of Dartmouth on Mar. 7, 1995. It is the first time Harvard has lost consecutive Ivy games since March of 1994.

The Crimson has fallen into a third-place tie in the Ivy League with Pennsylvania (7-10, 3-2) behind first-place Princeton (10-7, 5-0) and second-place Dartmouth (11-6, 4-1).

"I always feel exam break takes you out of your timing and your rhythm," said Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. "It also takes some of your conditioning away. We're never sharp coming out of exams."

"These two losses make it harder for us," she continued, "but I honestly feel we're still in the race [for an Ivy League title]. Anybody can beat anyone."

Harvard may have also suffered a bigger loss. Junior forward and leading scorer Laela Sturdy went down with a severely sprained right ankle in the second half against Yale and did not return or play against Brown (see related story page B-3).

Brown 82, Harvard 65

Still reeling from its shocking loss to Yale and minus its leading scorer in Sturdy, Harvard could not hang with Brown for much more than 20 minutes at the Pizzitola Center.

The Crimson's offense looked much better than it had one day earlier, but trouble reared its head in another form--rebounding. Brown outrebounded Harvard 26-11 in the first half as the Bears routinely had three and four shots on each possession.

"Rebounding is inexcusable; nobody should outrebound us," said co-captain Suzie Miller. "I, as a guard, take 100 percent of the blame. Their guards were strong rebounders, and we did not adjust to that."

Brown's guards crashed the boards vigorously and were consistently a step quicker to the ball than their Harvard counterparts, helping the Bears to 15 second-chance points. Despite only shooting 36.4 percent in the first half, Brown held a 34-29 lead at halftime.

"I thought in the first half we were taking, not necessarily bad shots, but quick shots and getting no second chances," Delaney-Smith said. "We tried to make that adjustment in the second half."

Harvard's deficit at intermission could have been worse; Brown led 34-23 with 2:38 remaining in the period. But the Crimson scored the final six points of the half on a trey by Miller, a free throw by freshman point guard Jen Monti and a lay-up by co-captain Sarah Russell to reduce the Bears' advantage to five.