The Harvard women's basketball team entered the championship game of the Copper Bowl Classic versus Arizona with confidence.

Although the Wildcats had routed the Crimson 83-59 last season at Lavietes Pavilion, Harvard--which had played almost all of the game without then-sophomore forward Allison Feaster--battled Arizona closely for majority of the contest before self-destructing with three minutes to play.

As a result, the Crimson was searching for a measure of redemption Sunday afternoon. What Harvard received instead was its worst beating in two years, a humiliating, 82-45 defeat.

"Arizona is a great team and they played excellent defense," Feaster said. "They forced a lot of turnovers. We were on their home court. All of those factors contributed [to the margin of defeat]."

The Wildcats excelled in transition, scoring most of their points on the fast break to open up an 27-point halftime lead.

Harvard had advanced to the championship game by soundly beating Southern Illinois 76-52, on the strength of 20-34 shooting in the second half.

"I remember [the Southern Illinois game] being a great showing of a team effort, "said Feaster, who led the Crimson with 24 points and nine rebounds in the contest. "We really played well together to win that game."

Arizona 82, Harvard 45

Following an impressive performance in the NCAA Tournament against nationally-ranked Vanderbilt, the Crimson had reason to expect success against Arizona, a Pac-10 team which failed to gain an NCAA berth last year.

But the formula which had worked so well for the Crimson last season--a transition game based on defense, rebounding superiority, team speed and spot-up three-point shooting--was turned against them by a more talented, more aggressive Arizona team.

A harassing Wildcats defense pressured the Crimson into 27 turnovers, easily Harvard's highest total this season.

Sparked by its stellar defense and a slight rebounding advantage (48-46), Arizona was able to generate easy, fastbreak baskets against a Harvard team which was unable to get back on defense.

"[Our] transition between offense and defense wasn't smooth," Feaster said. "They scored most of their baskets in transition."

After Harvard cut the Arizona lead to 14-6 on a jumper by Feaster with 13:46 to play in the first half, the Wildcats embarked on a 20-4 run over the next eight minutes to open up a 24-point lead, 34-10, forcing Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith to call timeout. The Crimson never got any closer than 19 points after that and trailed 46-19 at intermission.

"They forced us into a number of turnovers," Gelman said. "They just got so many open layups. They dictated the game. They pressed; we didn't. I don't think we responded in the right way until the second half."