The Harvard women's basketball team, tied atop the Ivy standings with Penn and Dartmouth, begins round two of league play tonight when it faces a Brown team that made a 25-6 second-half run on the Crimson before falling 73-64 a month ago.

The Crimson (13-6, 6-1 Ivy) will follow that contest up with a trip to Yale (9-12, 5-3), a team Harvard blew out with a 93-77 win on Jan. 15.

"Both teams work really hard," said senior guard Courtney Egelhoff. "They press a lot and they drive to the hole a lot. We have to come ready to play our best game."

Good news for the Crimson is that sophomore forward Katie Gates will be back in the lineup after sitting out for nearly a month following a concussion suffered against Yale in January. Bad news is that junior center Melissa Johnson won't be in the lineup and is out indefinitely after an injury against Penn on Friday.

Johnson tore her miniscus and suffered a slight tear in her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

"Worst case scenario is that she couldn't play for the rest of the season," said captain Laela Sturdy. "Best case scenario is that she can wear a brace and play next week. The ACL is the thing that is keeping her sidelined for stability reasons. It's an injury that needs to be evaluated every day."

Brown (5-17, 0-8) has been down on its luck throughout the Ivy season thus far and seems ripe for an upset.

In the month of February alone, the Bears have lost in overtime to Princeton, 55-52, fallen to Penn, 63-52, suffered a 64-63 heartbreaker to Columbia and a 74-71 near-upset to Cornell.