Kyle Dalton’s facebook.com profile features an image of the sophomore crouching next to replicas of two monkeys.

She imitates their frowny, silly faces.

Dalton’s a sophomore. She can’t help it.

“My teammates will testify that I never do anything stupid,” Dalton, a guard on the Harvard women’s basketball team, says. “Like losing things and forgetting things...I never do that.”

Christiana Lackner’s featured picture is slightly more refined. The sophomore forward grins a sideways, toothy smile.

She’s nicknamed “Belgian Waffle.”

“My mom’s from Belgium and when my sister and I were little,” Lackner says, “neighbors, mean ones, used to call us Belgian Waffles to make fun of us.

“I told the team and [senior guard Rochelle Bell] loved it, so she calls me that sometimes.”

After centuries of strange and irrational ridicule—guess where the word moron comes from?—sophomores remain fun to laugh at.

On the surface, Dalton and Lackner may appear a little sophomoric. But their games shun the mold. The second-year ballers are only getting better.

“Just a year of experience is so huge,” Dalton says. “You know your team, your coaches and the system so much better, and feel more comfortable.”

As freshmen, Dalton and Lackner were used only for standard clean-up work, and combined for three points and 10.9 minutes per game.

This fall, Dalton and Lackner have elevated their status. Their playing time—and total production—have bumped up considerably.

Consider the change over one month. In a season-opening win against Fairfield on Nov. 19, the sophomores played five minutes total, scoring two points on 1-3 shooting.

Things didn’t change in November. For the rest of the month, the pair averaged seven minutes total and spread four points over three games.