Giz-ney World

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Just before 2:00 a.m. EST on Saturday night, Buffy Clifford was flooded with phone calls, and they have not stopped coming in--neither have the faxes, the e-mails or the interview requests.

Clifford is the Harvard women's basketball Sports Information Director, and she probably feels like the busiest person in the nation right now. Following Harvard's stunning, 71-67, upset of fifth-ranked. Stanford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, it seems everyone wants a piece of the Crimson. And it is Clifford's job to streamline the media frenzy and make sure that everyone, from Sports Illustrated to USA Today, is accommodated.

"The first year that we got into the Tournament we had an incredible amount of attention because it was the first time that Harvard women's basketball had gotten into the Tournament," said Clifford, referring to Harvard's 100-83 loss to Vanderbilt in 1996, "but this year it's been taken to another level with this incredible upset that the team's pulled off."

"Right now [Harvard Coach] Kathy [Delaney-Smith] and her staff and her players are trying to focus on the next game, and I'm bothering her with frivolous requests. We're just all over the place," she said.

indeed, the biggest challenge Delaney-Smith and her team face is avoiding the emotional letdown that often comes with a victory of this magnitude when Harvard faces Arkansas in the second round of the Tournament tonight at 9 p.m. PST. But after becoming the first 16th-seeded team over to defeat a number one seed, the Crimson's confidence appears to have reached a new level.

"We have to stay on this incredible high we're on now. We have to play with the confidence that we knocked off a number one seed," co-captain Megan Basil said. "I know Arkansas is a great team, but we can do this."

"A letdown is not even crossing my mind," senior Sarah Brandt added. "I cannot even fathom a letdown."

In fact, the Harvard players are still having difficulty believing that they pulled off the greatest upset in the history of men's or women's postseason college basketball.

"Waking up the morning after and realizing it isn't a dream definitely makes it seem more real," Brandt said.

It was not a dream in the literal sense, figuratively it would be difficult to describe the accomplishment in any other way. When Harvard's Suzie Miller hit a three-pointer to put the Crimson ahead, 69-65, with just 46 seconds remaining in the game, she sent the Harvard bench into an uproar.

And after All-American Allison Feaster capped a 35-point, 13-rebound performance with a key steal and two crucial free throws in the waning seconds of the game, even the crowed of 5,000 plus fans--the vast majority of them Stanford supporters--sat silently in disbelief of what was happening to their beloved Cardinal.

"I do remember feeling overwhelmed when I saw three seconds on the clock and the final three seconds ticked away, just knowing what we had accomplished," Feaster said. "It was awesome, but I don't really think it has set in for us yet."

As those last few seconds ticked away, the Harvard players and coaches stormed the court in jubilant exhultation. Players leaped on top of each other, cried in one another's arms and held fists high in the air with only an index finger extended, symbolically representing Harvard's place in the annals of college basketball.

"I literally had dreamt about the celebration," Miller said. "We were in the locker room after the game talking about what we had just done, and it still staggers my mind. We're a team of history."

"I hardly even remember what was happening," Basil added. "There was just screaming, and I have no voice anymore. I can't believe it; it was amazing. It was the greatest moment in my whole entire basketball life, by far."

The magnitude of Harvard's achievement is truly difficult for many people to fathom. Aside from becoming the first victorious 16 seed in the history of the Big Dance, the Crimson also stopped a number of impressive runs by one of greatest programs in women's basketball.

Stanford had won 59 consecutive games on its home floor at Maples Pavilion before Saturday night's loss; its senior class had never lost at Maples. Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer, one of the winningest coaches ever in college basketball, had never lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

It is Stanford's earliest exit from the Tournament since the 1981-82 season. The Cardinal also had three consecutive Final Four appearances in the last three years, six Final Four appearances in the last eight years and two National Championships in that span (1990 and 1992). Stanford is considered by most college basketball experts the team of the 1990s.

"[Beating Stanford] gave me a glimpse of what big-time basketball is all about--what a lot of us passed up to come to Harvard," Miller said. "A lot of people passed up scholarships to some pretty good schools, and maybe could have experienced this before, but there's nothing like experiencing it with the Harvard basketball team, especially because we play for the love of the sport."

Harvard now has a chance to advance to the Sweet Sixteen if it can get by Arkansas tonight, and if the Crimson can keep riding its emotional high, there is no telling how far it can go in the postseason. This team has definitely proven that anything is possible.

"I really thought in my heart that we'd give Stanford a good game," Basil said. "I don't know if I truly believed that we would win, but I believe anything now can happen. When Suzie Miller hit that three...I am a firm believer in our team; anything can happen."