The Harvard men's basketball team has spent decades on the low end of one of the most dominated leagues in the history of college athletics. At 7:30 p.m. tonight, the Crimson could start to turn things around.

The Crimson travels to Dartmouth today for its 1984-85 Ivy League opener, which might just signal the start of Harvard's finest season ever.

And at the same time, it might just signal the end of what in the last 25 years has become the most monopolized league in collegiate athletic history.

In the last quarter century. Penn & Princeton have wrapped up Ivy League title as often as Johnson & Johnson have wrapped up boo boos.

Since 1960, only Yale in 1962 and Columbia in 1961 have broken the Penn Princeton stranglehold on the Ivy men's basketball trophy.

This year, though, things could be different.

For starters, Penn will have trouble without a sound forward, and Princeton will have trouble without a sound player.

Meanwhile, Harvard will field its soundest team in years and there's the makin' of a whole lot of shakin' from the fellows in Briggs Athletic Center.

"We have the ability to do a lot of things," says Harvard Coach Frank McLaughlin. "Including winning the Ivy title."

The same thing was considered possible a year ago, but Harvard one of only two teams in the 83 year history of Ivy hoop never to win a league crown--finished 9.5 and in second place.

This year, the hopes are even higher. That's because the Crimson lost to graduation an average of just 12 points per game, while picking up a slew of freshmen many consider the finest in years.

"We should be better." McLaughlin says emphatically. "The expectations are certainly higher."

The Crimson has yet to look like a championship team, however. For while it's off to its best start in years (holding a 3-0 overall record). Harvard has squandered huge first-half leads in each of its three games this winter, only to scramble for unimpressive victories over supposedly inferior opponents.

"We've played well, but not terribly consistently," says McLaughlin. "Based on our performance thus far, we're not playing like a league contender."

"If you put all our first halves together, we look like a real good team," says last year's Ivy League Player of the Year Joe Carrabino. "But if you take our second halves, then we don't look very good."

"We're not playing smart," adds McLaughlin, the Crimson's eighth year coach. "And that's got to be corrected real soon."

Tonight seems as good a time as any to start, what with its first road trip, its first Ivy opponent and its first major Division I squad all staring the Crimson right in the eye.

"Getting off on the right step is very important," says Carrabino. "We're a better team than Dartmouth and we can't afford to lose games like this."

The Crimson hasn't won in Hanover, N.H. in two years, and it was a terrible performance there a year ago that kept the Cantabs from a possible tie for the league crown.

"If we expect to be in the race," says Carrabino, "we can't beat Princeton twice and then turn around and lose to Dartmouth, like we did last year."

Those two victories over the Tigers marked the first time in 25 years that Harvard pulled off the double whammy. In addition, a victory over Columbia in New York City broke a 16-game road losing streak, and then two more wins away from home--over Yale and Brown--put the Cantabs on the brink of the Ivy title.

But a disappointing loss at home to Cornell on the first night of the season's final weekend ended any delusions of grandeur and raised questions about the Crimson's ability to win the big game.

That's the major obstacle Harvard will have to hurdle this year, but with virtually all its starters back and with the promising crop of freshmen in town. McLaughlin & Co. seem confident.

For starters, there's literally not a better player in the Ivy League than 6-ft., 9-in., Co-Captain Carrabino, who's on track to become Harvard's all-time leading scorer.

The senior forward and Ivy Player of the Year finished second in the league in scoring a year ago, with a hearty portion of his 22 points per game coming off his deadly outside shot. This year, he'll have to improve his rebounding skills if Harvard's to stay close.

Carrabino also finished second in the nation in free-throw percentage last season, leading a Crimson squad that set a new NCAA record for charity stripe accuracy.

Co-Captain Bob Ferry was also deadly--fourth in the nation--from the foul line, but this year he'll need to find the touch from the floor that was his trademark his first two years here.

Perhaps the key element in the entire Crimson game plan will be junior Arne Duncan, who came off the bench midway through last season to spark Harvard's dramatic drive.

"Arne became one of the better players in the Ivy League last year," says McLaughlin. "His unselfishness helped to make us a better team."

With most teams gunning for Carrabino and Ferry. Duncan's play might just determine Harvard's fortunes.

Right now, though, Duncan's once again coming off the bench, as a result of a surprise early-season move by McLaughlin.

"Arne Duncan's being asked to sacrifice right now," says the Crimson coach. "We're still trying to get a feel for what's the best combination."

Greg Wildes, Pat Smith and Keith Webster currently round out the starting quintet, whose scoring production last year was tops in the leisure.

Unfortunately, Harvard also had the worst defense in the league, and to correct that, this year's team will rely on some added height and some added quickness from a dynamic duo that's new to Cambridge.

Freshmen Kyle Dodson and Bill Mohler are the two Harvard will look to for immediate help, and their development could be as important as Carrabino and Ferry's play.

If they come along. Harvard will have as legitimate a shot at the league crown as any opponent.

"I'd like to think we have as good a shot as anyone," says Duncan. "We basically control our own destiny It's just a matter of playing to our potential.