Perez-Gizspenser

I must warn the reader at the onset that this column will probably seem melodramatic and, in the colloquial youthspeak of today, cheesy. So the faint of heart or the eternally cynical should stop reading now.

Those of you who are bold enough to continue, however, will not be disappointed--I hope. For this column will also be, in every respect, true.

As the Harvard women's basketball team prepares to head west for its first-round matchup against Stanford in the NCAA Tournament, the Crimson has many reasons to be excited.

No, I don't mean the mundane frivolity with which analysts have already started cluttering newspapers and websites nationwide, such as: Crimson versus Cardinal--which is the truest shade of red? Or the suggestion that Harvard and Stanford should compare GPAs rather than play a game.

We're talking about a basketball game, for goodness sake, not the Jeopardy College Championship. Besides, everyone knows that Stanford grade point averages are ridiculously inflated.

The cause for excitement should stem from the fact that Harvard will face a team that is one of the richest in tradition when it comes to women's basketball. Additionally, the Crimson will battle this perennial power in Maples Pavilion, a building that is home to still more women's college basketball lore.

Beyond the opponent and the location, for the first time in the history of its program, Harvard can bask in the thrill of playing on national television--the game will be broadcast live on ESPN. But most importantly, the Crimson's matchup with the Cardinal will be, at last, Harvard's opportunity to gain what it has gone so long without--national respect.

Harvard Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith, her assistants and her players--as well as the on-campus media--have spent years griping about how Harvard and the Ivy League deserve more respect in women's basketball. Well Coach, now you have the setting, the stage and the audience to prove it.

Stanford is one of the elite teams in women's college basketball. The Cardinal has made it to six Final Fours in the last eight years, and it has captured two national championships.

It has also dominated the Pac-10, one of the most competitive conferences in the nation, and it has been nearly unbeatable at Maples Pavilion. Stanford was 11-0 at home this season.

Harvard is headed right into the lion's den. Playing Stanford at Stanford is no easy task for any team, and Harvard gets to do it in front of millions of viewers on national TV. But that makes this opportunity even sweeter.

If the Crimson can pull off the victory over the fifth-ranked Cardinal, it would go down as one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history. It would also earn Ivy League women's basketball the same respect the men received when 13th-seeded Princeton stunned UCLA--and the nation--two years ago in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Princeton's men now have a cushy five seed. Harvard's women are still wallowing in the depths of a lowly 16. Of course, whether the Crimson deserved that low a seed is questionable, but that's the point.

Seven tournament-qualifying schools ranked below Harvard in Rating Percentage Index (RPI), the primary indicator the selection committee uses to seed teams for the Big Dance. Four of those teams received higher seeds than Harvard. Doesn't that seem like a lack of respect to you?

And I can't even begin to explain how Maine, a team that plays in the America East--a conference that is weaker than the Ivy League--and lost to two teams that Harvard handily defeated, got a 13 seed. That may be a worse crime than Harvard getting shaft-ed.

The point is Harvard's whining about no respect is not whining at all--it is the truth. This team wasn't asking for a 10 seed, just the 14 or 15 seed that it deserved. That would have been fair.

Now the Crimson has the opportunity to prove that such a seeding was, in fact, in order. Granted, the point will be much more difficult to make against an elite team like Stanford than it would have been against a two or three seed like Illinois, but none of that matters now.

Harvard has a television audience, one of the most historic stages in the country and one of the richest traditions in the game to make its point. It may never have such an opportunity again.

I don't want to hear about how much easier the Cardinal will be to defeat without Kristin Folkl in the lineup. Stanford is one of the best teams in the nation, regardless of which of its players step on the floor.

And five years from now, no one is going to remember who played for whom and who did what. If the Crimson can stun the nation, all that will be said is, "Harvard actually pulled it off."