Six games into the season, Harvard's women's hoops team appears to be suffering from a case of collective amnesia. They don't know who they are and are desperately searching for an identity.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Harvard's returning players were supposed to be enough to make the team an Ivy favorite. As fall practice began and everyone discovered the immense talent that the incoming freshmen possessed, a conference title seemed an easy task.

Instead, the season has so far been filled with the disappointment of a perplexing 1-5 start. Last night's ugly loss to Central Connecticut State--hardly a hoops powerhouse--seemed to be the last straw for Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

"[There was] nothing good about this game," Delaney-Smith said. "They should be ashamed of themselves."

In one sense, the preseason predictions for this team are right on. Harvard is literally loaded with talent. In fact, there's simply too much of it to go around. In short, Harvard has a chemistry problem.

For all of its skill, the team has no identity. Harvard's impressive individual players have tended to cancel each other out rather than complement each other. In this case, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts.

From the opening tipoff against the Blue Devils, Harvard looked like a confused team that was so uncertain of which weapon to use that it forgot to make the kill.

Harvard's starters were taller than their Blue Devil counterparts at every position. Thus logic dictated that the Crimson pound the ball inside to create easy shots. In particular, the Crimson should go to its most talented inside player, freshman Hana Peljto.