No Harvard basketball team has ever won an Ivy League title.

But that history of futility may be on the verge of falling this year--and it's not Pete Roby's men who will do the deed.

Instead, it is the Crimson women--long the doormat of the league, having finished no better than sixth in the past four seasons--who are threatening to bring an Ivy crown home to Cambridge.

The cagers, who beat defending co-champion Brown on the road earlier this season, look another huge step down the road to a title Saturday night by knocking off Dartmouth, 66-63, before 275 noisy fans at Briggs Athletic Center.

The win moved the Crimson into a first place tie with the Big Green in the Ivy standings and left the cagers 2-1 in the Ivies (8-4 overall).

Harvard's victory--its fourth in the last five outings--got the squad back on track after a two-point derailment at the hands of Maine University over the holiday break.

Anna Collins (17 points) and Nancy Cibotti (16) led the Crimson scoring attack, but it was a complete team effort--the hallmark of the squad's success this season--which enabled it to come back from an eight-point, second-half defecit.

Harvard has not won nine games in a single campaign since the 1979-80 season, when the Crimson posted an 11-12 mark.

And the cagers, with eight victories and counting, still have half of their schedule remaining this year.

"Right now, we are playing the best we've ever played," Co-Captain Anne Kelly said, who is in her third season with the team. "Everyone really trusts each other and that is very important."

"There is no team in the Ivies that we feel we can't beat right now," Collins said. "We just have to keep playing our game."

And play their game is exactly what the cagers did Saturday evening against the Big Green.

Afterall, this was a Dartmouth team that the cagers had only defeated once in nine previous meetings, dating back to 1979.

This was a Dartmouth team that was tabbed by Ivy coaches as the pre-season favorite to capture the league title and that had already triumphed over defending co-champion Brown.

This was a Dartmouth team that boasts two of last year's top four Ivy scoring leaders as well as two of the last three Ivy Rookie of the Year award recipients.