And Now, for the Main Acts...

Something smells like fish in the Ivy League's basketball division this year. We're already well underway, and Cornell's perched in first place with a 3-0 record. Pennsylvania, runner-up last season to Princeton, is winless and currently shares the basement suite with Dartmouth. Harvard coach Frank McLaughlin likes what he smells.

Some "experts" picked the Crimson to win the Ivies this year, but as long as Penn and Princeton field a team, sophisticated fans will probably consider them the favorites. So McLaughlin is perfectly satisfied to be sitting in second place with a 2-1 mark (6-7 overall), explaining that poor starts by the Quakers (0-2) and Tigers (1-1) more than make up for the surprises out of Ithaca.

"Cornell's just not that strong; they'll pick up their losses," predicts McLaughlin. "Penn and Princeton haven't even played each other or us yet, and they've got losses they weren't counting on."

All of which makes Harvard's games next weekend against Brown and Yale especially important and the Crimson's last-second, one-point loss to the Big Red particularly unfortunate.

Psychology plays a crucial role in the short Ivy League season; if Harvard departs for its Penn-Princeton weekend next month with a 4-1 league record, Jadwin Gym and the Palestra may not look as imposing as usual.

"We'd be even with them even if they win all their games between now and then, and then they'd have to start thinking about whether we can really do it this year; that's what we want," says McLaughlin.

The coach and some of his players add that two of this season's major offensive problems--point guard Calvin Dixon's leg injury and captain Don Fleming's scoring slump--may vanish in time for the Brown and Yale games.

Dixon will begin practicing next week for the first time in a month, and Fleming has been displaying a little bit of the old sparkle at recent intra-squad workouts.

The gaps in the starting lineup have given several second-stringers valuable experience under pressure, and in the Crimson's last outing against Columbia, subs Ken Plutnicki, George White and Kevin Boyle all displayed impressive poise.

Says starting guard Bob Ferry: "I guess we've showed that the bench could come through, but Donald's been playing well in practice; he and Calvin will be back."

The Crimson will tune up for the rest of the Ivy season with a home game against St. Anselm's Tuesday. Expect to see some of those subs checking in again after McLaughlin puts his starters through their paces.

Interesting stats of the week: Crimson forward Joe Carrabino now holds second place in the 1982 Ivy scoring rankings with a 17.3 points-per-game average...the Texas Longhorns, who knocked off Harvard by only one point in overtime before vacation, have stampeded to the No. 5 spot in the national rankings with a 14-0 record