SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Pitt has had better basketball teams, to be sure. It won three consecutive Big East Conference regular-season championships from 2002-04, something it won't do this season. It won the league tournament title in 2003, a feat it won't match next week unless it finds a way to suck it up and win four games in four days in New York. And it went to the NCAA tournament's round of 16 in 2002, 2003, 2004 and last season, terrific accomplishments that this year's bunch will be extremely fortunate to equal.

But all that doesn't mean that this Pitt team hasn't separated itself from those great teams that came before it in this golden era of Panthers basketball. The staggering 82-77 win at the Carrier Dome against Syracuse yesterday made sure of that. It didn't just all but officially put Pitt into the NCAA tournament for a seventh consecutive year. It assured that this Pitt team will be remembered as the most remarkable -- at least to this point -- of the Jamie Dixon/Ben Howland era if only because of its phenomenal resiliency.

Really, who thought Pitt was going to beat Syracuse when it trailed by 11 points with 3¹/₂ minutes left?

A bigger question: Who thought Pitt would be headed back to the NCAA tournament when it lost starters Mike Cook and Levance Fields to serious injuries in December?

Know this for certain: Pitt never has had a mentally tougher team.

"We find ways," Dixon said. "That's why we're who we are."

An amazing group.

An amazing program.

An amazing coach.

Dixon's message to his players during a timeout with Pitt down, 75-64, yesterday was pretty similar to what he told them after the hard-luck injuries to Cook and Fields.

"We're not going to quit. We may not win, but we're not going to quit. There's no quit in this team."

What followed almost defied belief. Pitt outscored Syracuse, 18-2, to all but snuff out Syracuse's NCAA tournament hopes and prompt coach Jim Boeheim to call it the "most disappointing game" of his Hall of Fame career.

What a mouthful that was.

But the story of this Pitt team is much bigger than just one astonishing road win at one of the Big East's tougher venues. Cook and Fields were the only returning starters from last season. Cook was lost for the season because of a knee injury against Duke Dec. 20. Fields broke his foot against Dayton Dec. 29 and missed almost seven weeks before returning late last month.

That means Pitt had to survive for most of the Big East season with a new starting lineup, including freshmen DeJuan Blair and Gilbert Brown. Who in college basketball had to replace more? Besides two-time defending national champion Florida, which sent its guys to the NBA?

"Coach Boeheim was telling me he's never had a season like this in his 32 years because of their injuries," Dixon said. "But we've had twice as many guys hurt. We've had four [including reserves Austin Wallace and Cassin Diggs]. And the list of injuries we have that guys are playing with is endless."

Dixon said Keith Benjamin wouldn't be playing with an infected finger if Pitt's bench wasn't so short. He also said Brown and Ronald Ramon probably are looking at shoulder surgery after the season. He didn't even mention Blair, who has a bad shoulder and a bad knee.

"Coach Dixon told us that other coaches told him he should just pack it in this season and think about trying to get ready for next year after Mike and Levance went down," Benjamin said. "But he and our other coaches never stopped believing in us. The guys in our locker room never stopped believing ..."

Not even when they were down by 11 yesterday.

"This game is like our whole season," Benjamin said. "No team in the country has been through what we have. We've had a lot of adversity, but we never stopped fighting. We didn't win 'em all, but we won a lot. We were down against Duke and we won. We weren't supposed to beat Georgetown and we won. We were down against West Virginia and we won ...

"We've gotten through it all OK. We're still here. We're still fighting."

Who knows what it all will mean when Pitt goes to West Virginia tomorrow night and faces what figures to be an unbelievably hostile crowd, when it gets to New York for the Big East tournament and when it plays in the NCAA tournament? The Panthers shot better yesterday and rebounded better, but they had another lousy defensive game, a couple of huge late steals by Ramon and Sam Young aside. They allowed Syracuse to shoot 58.8 percent, which will get you beat in most games.

No matter what happens down the road, though, this Pitt team always will hold a special place in Pitt lore.

"I'm proud of these guys," Dixon said, quietly.

For very good reason.