The banner hasn’t been stitched, the net hasn’t been cased, and the trophy hasn’t arrived—yet.

Three days have passed since the Harvard women’s basketball team pulled off an incomprehensible 15-point comeback to upset arch-rival Dartmouth in the Ivy League championship game and take a share of the league title.

So what now?

“We get to do it all over again,” senior guard Katie Murphy said.

Murphy, who put Tuesday’s game on ice by fleecing Sydney Scott under the Dartmouth basket with 43 seconds remaining, isn’t being facetious. With tomorrow evening’s playoff rematch between the Crimson (20-7, 12-2 Ivy) and the Big Green (16-10, 12-2), the stakes are different but undeniably real.

“Now,” said Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith on Tuesday night, “it’s about who’s going to the NCAA.”

This time, winner keeps playing—at one of eight possible sites for the first round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, to be televised on ESPN—and loser goes home. For good.

This time, Harvard won’t have nearly 2,000 fans showing up on its doorstep. The playoff will take place in a neutral location: the Pizzitola Center in Providence, R.I.

And this time, the Crimson faces a mean Big Green squad that wants its dignity back.

“They are still trying to hold onto their championship,” Murphy said. “We still don’t really have anything to lose.”

In defiance of the spirit of March basketball, Delaney-Smith said all bets are off.

“If you bet money on it, you’re gonna lose,” she said. “If you don’t know by now, it’s gonna be a dog fight down there.”

Fans have come to expect as much from the rivalry. Now entering its 20th year—that’s how long Delaney-Smith and Dartmouth head coach Chris Wielgus, the Ivies’ deans of women’s hoops, have been skirmishing—it has provided a steady diet of topsy-turvy contests and stirring performances.

This is the third time the two squads have met this season. On Jan. 8, Harvard managed an equally exuberant comeback—from 19 down with 13:34 remaining—only to lose in overtime by three.

“We knew the first time out what we should’ve done,” said Crimson captain Reka Cserny, who poured 12 points on the Big Green in the last 6:02 of Tuesday’s showdown. “Now we believe that we can beat them.”