Dancing Queens

Last March, members of the Harvard women’s basketball team took advantage of the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four location in Boston and attended the national title game between Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) powerhouses Maryland and Duke. The matchup delivered on its promise of championship excitement, as the two teams battled into overtime and the Terrapins eventually emerged with a 78-75 victory.

The trip was a bonding experience, nothing more—an event at which the players could share a few laughs and enjoy watching their game at its highest level of play. After a rebuilding season slowed by injuries and inexperience, Harvard players were just another group of March Madness spectators. No one on the team could have predicted that the game would take on a new meaning a year later, and that it might have served the Crimson well to pay special attention to the team hoisting the championship trophy on the parquet floor.

But that improbability will become reality Sunday, when Harvard (15-12, 13-1 Ivy) will take on defending national champion Maryland (27-5, 11-4 ACC) in the first round of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. The Crimson is a 15-seed and Maryland is the second-ranked team in the tourney’s Dayton regional bracket. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Conn., and the game will be televised on ESPN and ESPNU.

“This is pretty amazing,” sophomore forward Katie Rollins said Monday night, when Harvard players and coaches gathered to watch the NCAA Selection Show at Donohue’s Bar and Grill in Watertown. “It’s just unbelievable to be playing the defending champions.”

While the Crimson was stuck on the couch and in the stands during last year’s tourney, its Ancient Eight dominance in 2007 punched its automatic ticket to the Big Dance. Since dropping a 61-53 decision at Yale January 26, Harvard is riding an 12-game winning streak.

But the Crimson’s placement as a 15-seed was surprising given the team’s abysmal nonconference showing—Harvard went 2-11 before tearing through the Ivy League. Tournament experts projected the Crimson as the lowest-possible 16-seed, which would have given Harvard a matchup with one of the tournament’s four top-ranked teams: North Carolina, Tennessee, Connecticut, or Duke.

“I didn’t pay much attention to ‘Bracketology’ or the coverage, but I thought we were a 16 [seed] all the way,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said. “But I’m thrilled to be playing the national champions.”

“We did not show well early for our talent,” Harvard co-captain Christiana Lackner added. “But I really think we deserve the seeding we got, and we’ll be ready.”

The Crimson may not be playing one of the tourney’s top four seeds, but it may have drawn the next-toughest thing in the Terrapins. The defending champions began the ’06-’07 at the top of the national rankings, but its four conference losses this season have dropped them to the sixth spot in the nation. Maryland is coming off a loss to North Carolina—a number one seed in the tournament’s Dallas region—in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament.

Still, all five starters from last year’s championship squad are still wearing a Maryland uniform, and all five are averaging double figures in scoring. Junior center Crystal Langhorne leads the team in points and rebounds with 15 and eight per game, respectively, while sophomore guard Kristi Tolliver has a deadly touch from outside as the nation’s second-most-accurate three-point shooter.

Terrapin senior guard Shay Doron will bring an interesting side story to the Sunday’s game, as her college choice as a high school senior boiled down to Maryland against Harvard. Four years later, Doron has scored over 2,000 points for the Terrapins—good enough for a school record.

“We recruited Shay Doron heavily,” Delaney-Smith said. “She’s really a great player—very athletic and tough as nails.”

If the Crimson wants to hang with Doron and the rest of the defending champions, it will need stellar play from its trio of all-Ivy guards: first team selection Emily Tay, second-team member Lindsay Hallion, and honorable mention recipient Niki Finelli. Harvard will likely find itself overmatched physically, so it will need turnovers and fast-break layups to keep up with Maryland on the scoreboard.

“They are great rebounders and great athletes,” Delaney-Smith said of the Terrapins. “We really have to slow them down.”

Experts consider Dayton the most loaded of the tournament’s four regions, as Maryland will likely have to beat Candace Parker and top-seeded Tennessee or Courtney Paris and third-seeded Oklahoma to return to the Final Four.

But if Harvard can play the role of bracket-buster, the Terrapins will find themselves spectators to another team’s championship run. As much fun as watching last year’s title game might have been, the Crimson doesn’t want any part of Maryland’s return trip.

“It was really inspiring,” Lackner said of attending last year’s championship game. “Now it’s a little intimidating to be playing them. But we work just as hard as they do, and we think we can play with them.”

—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu.