“These next games are really big this weekend,” Robinson affirmed. “I expect we will win both of the games. “We have had a good week of practice and are prepared for both Princeton and Penn.”

“We have to start off strong for all three of these games and we’ll be fine,” junior guard Jessica Holsey said.

The last time the Crimson battled the Quakers, it took a final run to upend the 2004 champs at Penn’s Palestra.

Trailing 48-41 with less than eight minutes left, Harvard stormed back to pick up a 55-51 victory, keeping the Quakers scoreless for the final 4:20 of play.

The Crimson defense dominated again the following day, helping the team sail to a 67-51 victory over Princeton.

If the Crimson can repeat its previous success with Penn and Princeton, and barring a Big Green collapse in the meantime, Tuesday’s night’s showdown with Dartmouth will decide the title.

A victory at home on Tuesday would make the Crimson the Ivy League co-champions with Dartmouth.

A play-in game would be required to decide who represents the league in the NCAA Tournament.

“This is a team that has to make defense a part of the game,” Delaney-Smith said. “When our defense is playing well, it sparks us to pay better offensively.”

The Crimson came up short to Dartmouth in the season opener, but the game was not a total loss.

The game proved Delaney-Smith’s point to be a valid one and the team learned how to tweak its approach to achieve a successful result.

Midway through the second half, the Crimson was down by 19 points.

A powerful rally forced the game into overtime, but the Crimson could not come up with a victory.

“We learned a lot,” Cserny said. “We learned that we needed to focus for the full forty minutes, especially on defense.”

“Since the Dartmouth game we have become a very different team,” Robinson added. “We have more team chemistry and our defense has improved dramatically.”

The defense has proven critical during Harvard’s current five-game winning streak.

Furthermore, it is staying strong throughout the course of each game.

“At this point in the season I can’t see us losing any momentum,” Robinson said. “Right now the thing that is driving this team and keeping our focus is the Ivy title and going to the NCAA Tournament.”

“We want it,” Holsey said. “We want it really bad.”