It's mid-January, the Pitt basketball team is 14-2 overall and 2-1 in the Big East Conference with its only league loss coming on the road to a ranked team. As often has been the case, the Panthers are gearing up for a nationally televised showdown against a conference rival with which they have a heated past.

If you didn't know better, you would think it was business as usual for the Panthers, who play Georgetown at 7 p.m. today at Petersen Event Center.

It is, of course, not business as usual. As is well-known, in the space of 10 days, Pitt's season and the high hopes entwined with it were ripped apart. The Pitt career of senior small forward Mike Cook, who had started 48 consecutive games, ended Dec. 20 with a major knee injury against Duke. On Dec. 29, point guard Levance Fields, the team's most valuable player, had a bone broken in his foot that will keep him out until late-February.

A basketball team losing two of its five starters would be the equivalent of a football team, which has 22 starters, losing nine regulars.

Imagine the Steelers losing nine starters.

When Cook went down, the conventional wisdom was the Panthers could still be a good team, a tournament team -- if not a championship team. When Fields joined him, the conventional wisdom was Pitt could not salvage the season, could not go .500 in the Big East and would not receive a seventh consecutive bid to the NCAA tournament.

Jamie Dixon is not a conventional-wisdom guy. Few coaches have a more unswerving dedication to their players and to the goals ahead. In the face of this seemingly insurmountable adversity, Dixon refused to blink nor would he allow his players to do so.

Concerning his team's depleted status, Dixon said after an 84-70 win against Seton Hall Saturday, "It is what it is and we're not going to lower our expectations."

There are only a few loyalists expecting a Pitt win tonight, and that's understandable. At full strength, Pitt would have difficulty with Georgetown, which is 13-1, ranked seventh and led by 7-foot-2 center Roy Hibbert, who will be an NBA lottery pick.

But here's what really matters. There also are few who would be shocked if Pitt beat Georgetown. Nothing this team -- this program -- does should surprise anyone. Almost without fail in the Dixon/Ben Howland era the Pitt team has been considerably greater than the sum of its parts. No McDonald's All-Americans, no super recruits, just players who usually seem to be a little more mentally tougher than the opposition.

It might have something to do with the New York influence that permeates the program. This is a tough bunch of young men, always are, and their eye never strays from the target. Some of the professional teams in this town would do well to emulate the mentality of this group.

There's no feeling sorry on this team, not even an outward sign of any loss of confidence.

When career reserve Keith Benjamin was inserted into the starting lineup and blossomed in that role, no one acted surprised. Dixon invariably will say he knew all along this would happen. Even when almost-never-used freshman Gary McGhee came out of nowhere to log 12 solid minutes -- six points, four rebounds -- against South Florida last week, Dixon acted like he expected nothing less.

The upside of any injury is opportunity for others. Benjamin has seized it with both hands and so, in a different manner, have junior Sam Young and freshman DeJuan Blair. Unlike Benjamin, much was expected from both. They are providing even more. In any circumstance, there would have been no denying this combined force, but the injuries served to give it a quicker springboard. The result is an inside game that Pitt hasn't had in decades. In the short Big East season, Young is fourth in the league in scoring, Blair second in rebounding. In all games, Young is fourth in scoring, Blair third in rebounding.

Pitt hasn't had an inside tandem this good since Charles Smith and Jerome Lane, and we're not forgetting Brian Shorter/Bobby Martin and Chevy Troutman/Chris Taft.

Regardless of what happens tonight, there's reason to believe Pitt can get that seventh consecutive bid. The Big East is always strong, but maybe not as top-heavy as in the past. If the one-point loss at Villanova is a reliable barometer, and there's no reason it should not be, the Panthers can get at least seven more Big East wins and a likely NCAA tournament bid that goes with it.

Already some are suggesting the fortuitous side of the injuries is the impact they will have on making 2008-09 better because of all the additional experience some players are receiving.

But this team, this coach has its eyes on only one target: This season.