The Crimson were going to have to deal with the same kind of pressure they put on teams all season. Michigan State’s defense was as vicious and unrelenting — if not more. They guarded from the inbounds, touched their chins when the wanted to send traps, made passing lanes feel like fritzy elevator doors.

All the things the Crimson like to do.

Michigan State blitzed the Crimson early with a 9-0 run in the first 3:06. Harvard stabilized, but never fully recovered. A 64-50 loss at Reynolds Coliseum had their return to the NCAA Tournament a short one.

Ivy League player of the year Harmoni Turner finished with 24 points. She went 7 of 22 from the floor, 2 of 10 from 3-point land and 8 of 9 from the free throw line. The puzzle the Crimson couldn’t solve was finding offense besides Turner. The Crimson shot 18 of 65 and missed 22 of 26 3-pointers.

The Crimson (24-5) held the Spartans (22-9) to their third-lowest scoring total this season, but ran into a defense that was just as stingy, holding them to a season-low scoring night.

The Spartans took away fast break opportunities (the Crimson scored just 4 points on the break). Scoring in the paint was a battle (20 paint points, 7 of 18 on layups).

Turner airballed her first shot — a three from the left wing — and the Spartans fans let her know about it. She sprinted back on defense, smiling, seemingly knowing that the game wasn’t going to be won with shot-making. It was going to be won with stops.

Turner had one brief stint on the bench in the first half — mostly to give coach Carrie Moore a chance to settle her down.

Otherwise, she played 19 of the first 20 minutes.

The Spartans missed 10 of their first 15 shots, turned over the ball four times in the first quarter, and had two of attempts swatted.

The Crimson missed 14 of their first 16 shots, came up empty on all six of their 3-point attempts, had two shots turned away, and turned it over five times.

The score after one was 15-11, Michigan State, and it was exactly the slugfest both coaches were banking on.

Moore adopted the press in the offseason, knowing the best defense almost always won the Ivy League.

Fralick’s belief in pressing started when she was a Division 2 head coach. Her husband coaches high school and watching her team only cemented her belief.

“I think we have a number of different presses we use,” she said. “It’s kind of up to us and our kids to make sure it’s effective. Night in and night out, I think that looks a little different depending on who we’re playing.”

The Crimson went into the locker room at the half trailing, 24-19.

Turner didn’t get an easy bucket until the third quarter, when she curled off a screen with Elena Rodriguez eyeing her from the top of the key, caught a pass from Rodriguez in stride and finished a layup that cut it to 24-23.

It was an action they had run dozens of times in their four years together.

It was also one of the first signs that the Crimson could put some offense together.

The catch was that Michigan State started to figure it out, too. After going 1 for 4 on 3-pointers in the first half, they got back-to-back threes from Inés Sotelo and Jocelyn Tate that gave them a 37-25 lead with 5:07 left.

That kind of separation was enough to raise a red flag for Moore, who called a timeout to let her team regroup.

The Crimson returned to the tournament for the first time since 2007. The last time — and only time — they advanced to the second round was 1998 when they stunned Stanford and became the first 16 seed to upset a No. 1 seed.

They took the floor after N.C. State staved off an upset bid by Vermont.

Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com.