With two easy wins so far, the Harvard basketball team opens its home season against Tufts tonight. Hometown fans will get a chance to see if the quintet can come up with the right answers to the three major questions that face them. If they can, it could mean a surprisingly good year for Crimson basketball.

* Can bench strength make up for lack of a big man? The Crimson has at least seven steady performers, and Dan Martell should prove to be the eighth, now that he has recovered from his ankle injury. But Harvard does not have a center other than Paul Waickowski, who has not yet proved he can do a consistently good job.

* Can Jeff Grate, who Floyd Wilson has called "one of the finest natural athletes I've seen at Harvard," start playing up to his potential this year after a somewhat disappointing sophomore season? Grate can jump -- he's one of the few 6 ft. 1 in. players anywhere who can stuff the ball with two hands. He's quick, and can shoot and pass well, but he tends to be careless at times.

* Can a team with eight sophomores--and nothing but sophomores in the front court -- play steadily enough against teams like B.C., Dayton, and Notre Dame? (These teams are really on the Harvard schedule this year.)

Less Booboos

None of these questions can be completely answered against the Jumbos tonight. One measuring stick, though, is the number of times the Crimson loses the ball on traveling violations, bad passes, and offensive fouls. It happened less often in the W.P.I. game than the Brandeis, and it is a good bet it will be even better tonight.

The freshmen meet their Tufts counterpart at 6 p.m.