The Harvard Crimson women's basketball team is the intercollegiate women's basketball program representing

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. The school competes in the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference of eight Private university, private Research university, research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegia ...

in Division I of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA). The

Crimson Crimson is a rich, deep red color, inclining to purple. It originally meant the color of the kermes dye produced from a scale insect, '' Kermes vermilio'', but the name is now sometimes also used as a generic term for slightly bluish-red col ...

play home basketball games at the

Lavietes Pavilion The Ray Lavietes Basketball Pavilion at the Briggs Athletic Center is a 1,636-seat multi-purpose arena in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. Owned by Harvard University, it is the second-oldest college basketball arena still in use (Fordham Univ ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

near the university campus. They are the first team in NCAA basketball history to win in national tournament play as a #16 seed against a #1 seed.

History

Harvard has won the

eleven times, with four shared (1986, 1988, 2005, and 2008) and seven won outright (1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2007). Harvard has lost twice in a playoff to determine the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, losing 75–61 to Dartmouth in 2005 and losing to Dartmouth 68–62 in 2008.

Postseason appearances

The Crimson have reached the NCAA Tournament seven times, with one postseason win in 1998 over Stanford 71–67. To date, this is the only time a #16 seed has beaten a #1 seed in women's NCAA Tournament history (In men's basketball, the

UMBC Retrievers The UMBC Retrievers are the athletic teams that represent the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, located in Catonsville, Maryland, in intercollegiate athletics as a member of the NCAA Division I, Division I level of the National Collegiate ...

became the first to do so, 20 years later). The historic win sent them into the Second Round (only reached one other time in Ivy League history), where they lost 82–64 to Arkansas.

References

External links

* {{collegebasketball-team-stub