Pity not the scheduling gods. Tonight, they get just what they always wanted.

Four months, 110 total days, and 26 games into the season, the Harvard (19-7, 11-2 Ivy) and Dartmouth (16-9, 12-1) women’s basketball teams battle inside Lavietes Pavilion tonight for Ivy League championship rights. Tip-off is slated for 6 p.m.

“This,” Crimson coach Kathy Delaney-Smith said, “is the way it should be.”

Facing the prospect of an all-the-marbles showcase, the traditional rivals neatly wrapped up their final season series.

Both systematically dispatched Princeton and defending Ivy champions Penn by double figures this weekend. Both entered the day in the midst of dominant late season runs. Both are led by eight-time championship-winning coaches—Delaney-Smith for Harvard and Chris Wielgus for Dartmouth—who boast supremely successful résumés.

And both follow the same mantra.

“They believe, like us, that they can and should win,” Delaney-Smith said.

As with any dream-perfect scenario, there’s a catch. In an act that raised many Crimson eyebrows, the Big Green cut down their own nets on Saturday night to celebrate a share of the Ivy title. They must beat Harvard to wrest control of that label outright.

The Crimson faces a do-or-die scenario, entering the day one game behind their rival and needing a win to share the title.

Should that happen, a play-in game would take place on a neutral site to determine who represents the Ivy League in the 2005 NCAA Tournament.

For some, Dartmouth’s net-cutting was premature.

“They’ve already declared,” Harvard junior point guard Laura Robinson said. “That right there is motivation for us.”

And as always, the underdog label—which the Crimson gracefully carries, having fallen to the Big Green in overtime on January 8—brings with it special significance in March.

“Dartmouth has all the pressure on them,” Robinson said. “We have nothing to lose.”

The outlook for the season’s predetermined endgame wasn’t always so rosy.