There were less than six minutes left in the game, and things were only getting bleaker. The women's basketball team's deficit had swelled to 18, and the conference title seemed to slip further away with every brick tossed up from the perimeter. With New York University's bigger players bullying them the whole game, co-captain Catherine Brady '05 did what the team has done too often when it trails: She tossed up a long three-pointer.

It never found the rim.

This, of course, was not the team's second consecutive home ECAC championship game victory last Saturday. It was the game that knocked the team out of NCAA tournament contention a week before at NYU. The Judges fell into an early hole against the Violets and never recovered, dropping their regular season finale 60-47.

A week later, the Judges cut down the net at Red Auerbach Arena for the second time in as many years, but the spectacle was accompanied by notably less fanfare than last season.

The bleachers never completely filled Saturday and they were almost empty by the time Coach Carol Simon climbed the ladder with scissors in her hands for a decidedly anticlimactic end to the team's record-breaking season.

With 23 wins, the Judges broke the school record and easily steamrolled the inferior ECAC competition. But in the weird world of sports, a first-round NCAA tournament loss without any record-breaking would have made for a better season. For two years in a row, the Judges have just barely missed out on the Big Dance. Last season their success came as a surprise. This season it was an expectation.

Brady's air-ball didn't lose the game in New York, but it did symbolize a significant challenge this burgeoning powerhouse program has faced this season. Too many times after falling into early holes against physical teams the Judges have settled for outside shots instead of attacking the basket and putting pressure on the defense. It's hard to put the ball in the basket from 20 feet. But it's much harder if you've been forced out there.

The team shot a combined 22.6 percent from the field in its four losses. Aggressive post-play from Caitlin Malcolm '07, Christine Clancy '06 and Jaime Capra '08 kept Brandeis on the free throw line sporadically, but most of the perimeter players were helplessly pushed around and the team was abysmal from beyond the arc in their last three losses.

The Judges went without a field goal for more than 17 minutes in the second half of their third loss of the season, a 61-42 drubbing at the hands of the University of Rochester, shooting 1-20 for the half. Clancy took 14 free throws in that half, while the rest of the team made only eight trips to the charity stripe and shot a combined 0-8 from the three-point line in the same span.

All teams fall behind. The teams who can come back are the ones that win the big games. Brady closed out the season and her career with a barrage of four 3-pointers in the closing minutes of the ECAC title game, and for at least a moment the excitement rivaled last year's. But the basket looks much bigger with the scoreboard already on your side.

Basketball is a physical sport, and the teams that can get physical and push back are the teams that win real championships. Sure, this team could easily win the next two ECAC championships, but no one in the ECAC bracket can knock them around the way NYU did. If the Judges can learn to push back, they can move on-and dance with big teams.