The Harvard men's basketball team doesn't win at Princeton.

The last time the cagers triumphed on the Tigers' home turf, nobody on the current Crimson squad had been born, Coach Frank McLaughlin was an elementary school pupil and Dwight Eisenhower sat in the Oval Office.

Harvard last won at Princeton during the 1957-58 season, and 24 times since then the Tigers have been unfriendly.

Last year Princeton bounced the visiting cagers, 66-50. But despite the grim oracle of history and Harvard's erratic play this season, the men from Cambridge have an outside shot at an upset triumph when they take the Jadwin Gym floor tonight at 8 p.m.

For one thing, Harvard may have begun to solve the Princeton puzzle. The New Jersey denizens hauled a 21-game series winning streak up the stairs of the IAB last year, only to return home on the down side of a 53-49 overtime score.

Crimson guard Calvin Dixon sank a patented hanging twister to send the regionally televised contest into extra minutes, then swished two last-second free throws to clinch the Harvard victory.

Now a senior and a co-captain, Dixon should again be up for the annual tilts with Princeton and Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia native was recruited by Penn, Princeon, Georgetown and Columbia, and he still remembers the way people reacted when he told them he planned to attend Harvard.

"They thought I was crazy," Dixon said earlier this week.

This weekend is Dixon's final chance to prove to the hometown folks that his choice of Harvard didn't mark the end of his basketball career. It won't be easy: Penn and Princeton have captured 19 of the last 20 Ivy League championships.

The biggest barrier to a Crimson victory tonight is Tiger Craig Robinson. The 6-ft., 6-in., 200-lb. forward tallied 25 and 17 points in Princeton's showdowns with the cagers last year. Teaming with Robinson on the front line will be 220-lb. Gordon Enderle, who also averages in double figures.

The Tigers play a disciplined offense, so for McLaughlin's crew to pull off an upset. Harvard (9-8 overall, 2-4 in Ivy play) will have to keep the game moving. No such problems will bother the cagers Saturday, as the Quakers like to blitzkrieg their opponents.

The current Ivy leaders and defending Ivy champs returned the bulk of their powerful lineup, and Dixon and Co. will need their best night of the year to topple the squad that hasn't fallen to a visiting Crimson contingent in 15 years.

But Dixon has invited family and friends to his final performance at the 9232 seat Palestra. He doesn't intend to go out a loser.

"This is it for me," he said. "This is it. This year we can catch 'em."