It's gonna be a really big show, as Ed Sullivan would say.

This Tuesday night at Dartmouth, the Harvard men's basketball team faces the Big Green in a crucial Ivy league contest that may very well decide the fate of the entire-known universe.

Hyperbole aside, sophomore forward Ron Mitchell nevertheless said, "it's a very important game."

Harvard (6-8 overall, 2-1 Ivy) hopes to wrest first place from the firm fists of the Big Green (8-6 overall, 3-0 Ivy). Since Dartmouth remains the lone undefeated team in Ivy league play, this won't be an easy task. Besides the Big Green's record, the Crimson also must contend with the cycles of recent history.

Every season, the Crimson clashes twice with the Big Green. And every year, in what has become a perverse tradition, Harvard comes up empty handed in both games.

So how important is it? Consider this:

1988-'89: Dartmouth, 103-90, 93-91 (OT)

1987-'88: Dartmouth, 66-58, 91-89 (2OT)

1986-'87: Dartmouth, 74-69, 83-77

It doesn't take a Harvard Ph. D. to see the recurring pattern here. And Dartmouth already defeated Harvard earlier in the year in an electric 75-74 hair-raiser at Briggs Cage. If every-thing works out, the Big Green should rumble over the Crimson with reckless abandon come Tuesday night, right?

Not according to Mitchell and Ralph James.

"Dartmouth is very beatable," Mitchell said. "The key to the game is that we can't let them jump out to an early lead like they did last time."

In the first game, Dartmouth ran up a 9-0 lead before Harvard could put the ball in the hoop. A crucial element those first few minutes, as James noted, "were the early turnovers. They really hurt us."

Besides preventing Dartmouth from assuming an early lead, James outlined three points that the Crimson must check off in order to win this game.

"We need to get off to a really good start," James said. "If we lead early, that'll change the entire complexion of the game. They'll start to run, and then we can start with our press."