The varsity basketball team takes on the Yale Bulldogs for the second time in four days tonight in the I.A.B. and, although the Crimson is sunk irredeemably in sixth place, the game is vital to the Elis' Ivy League fortunes. Tip-off will be at 8 p.m.

Yale needs the victory to finish the season in a tie for first place with Princeton, but nothing the varsity does tonight will alter its position in the Ivy race.

Last Saturday, the Crimson came as close to defeating the Elis as it could without actually doing it. Leading for most of the game and out in front with only five minutes remaining, the varsity finally succumbed to the Bulldogs, 56-52.

Tonight, coach Floyd Wilson's five gets another shot at the Elis, and it could put a rather delightful end to the Yalies title hopes.

In its last few games, the team has been playing some superb basketball. It has slowed the game down and controlled the ball well, with the starting five seeming to really hit their stride.

Bob Inman, finally playing regularly again after a bad ankle injury, has scored in double figures in his last four games (and was high point man against both Penn and Princeton). In addition, Inman has been scoring on 50 per cent of his shots.

Leo Scully and Vern Strand have hit for double figures in three of their last five games, and Strand is averaging 10.2 points a game, just behind team leader Dennis Lynch at 10.3.

But the Crimson will have to watch the Bulldogs' Rick Kaminsky, second highest scorer in the Ivy League (surpassed only by the Tigers' Bill Bradley). Kaminsky had an off night Saturday, scoring only 15 points, but the odds are against him being cold two nights in a row.

And if the Harvard zone defense is to stop Kaminsky's usual accurate outside shooting, it will have to really move.

Despite the close contest Saturday, tonight's game could easily become a runaway. The defending champion Elis won't be overconfident, and Cambridge and Harvard work strange changes on the usually docile boys from New Haven.