NEW YORK -- It's the second week in March. That must mean only one thing.

The Pitt Panthers are on the prowl at the Big East Conference tournament.

Pitt defeated Louisville, 76-69, in overtime in a quarterfinal game last night at Madison Square Garden. The Panthers (23-9) advanced to a semifinal game against Marquette, which defeated Notre Dame, 89-79, last night in another quarterfinal game.

It doesn't seem to matter what the competition is in this venue at this time of the year, but Louisville has suited Pitt just fine. This is the third year in a row the Panthers knocked out the Cardinals in the tournament.

This time, Louisville was the No. 2 seed and had aspirations of playing for a title tomorrow night. But as has been the case for so many years this decade, Pitt is the team that is in position to play for a championship.

The Panthers can get there for the seventh time in eight years if they are able to win tonight. Their victory last night was their 17th in their past 23 conference tournament games.

"We always have good games here," Pitt junior Sam Young said. "This is our home away from home."

Pitt had been scuffling down the stretch, losing four of the final seven regular-season games. The difference in the first two games of the tournament has been the Panthers' much-improved defense.

Pitt held Cincinnati to 39 percent shooting in a first-round game Wednesday night. The Panthers did even better against the Cardinals, who could only manage to shoot 37.5 percent. That's a big improvement over the game against Louisville at Petersen Events Center Feb. 24 when it shot 58 percent.

"We made a lot of adjustments from the last game," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "We had to shut down [David] Padgett."

The two players who hurt Pitt the most in Louisville's 75-73 victory in Pittsburgh were Padgett and Edgar Sosa, who combined for 39 points. They only scored 14 between them last night. Whenever Padgett got the ball in the post, he was almost always double-teamed. That forced him to pass the ball to the perimeter, and the Cardinals could not make the Panthers pay. They made just 4 of 19 shots from behind the 3-point arc.

"We knew they were probably going to come after us in the post," Padgett said. "We've got to give them credit. They played very well on defense. They were very aggressive in what they did."

The new aggressive nature of the defense can be traced to Pitt's health, which is the best it has been since late December. The Panthers only began to resume full-contact practice in the week before the regular-season finale against DePaul. Dixon credits those intense practices for the improved defense.

"I don't think anyone really knew what to make of our team with all the injuries," he said. "We're finding ourselves. I think we're on our way. We're just getting better and better."

Perhaps the most impressive part of the defensive effort was that the Panthers did it with many of their starters in foul trouble. Keith Benjamin could only play nine minutes because of foul trouble. Levance Fields picked up three first-half fouls. The fouls forced Dixon to call on freshman guard Gilbert Brown to play 36 minutes, and Brown responded with some big plays on offense and defense. Brown scored eight points and had eight rebounds, and his steal with less than two minutes remaining in overtime paved the way to victory.

The foul trouble did not preclude the Panthers from playing well offensively, either. The Panthers shot 43 percent from the field. Young led the way with 21 points and 12 rebounds. And freshman center DeJuan Blair, who had a disappointing game Wednesday night against Cincinnati with only two points, bounced back with 16 points and eight rebounds.

"It's a great win for us," Dixon said. "We played hard. I thought we battled through some things. We had the foul trouble early. We got performances by everybody. I'm so proud of these guys, every one of them. They just battled. That's really the best way to sum it up."

NOTES -- Pitt beat Louisville in the semifinal round last year and in a first-round game in 2006. ... Power forward Earl Clark led Louisville with 19 points. ... Pitt senior guard Ronald Ramon played 42 minutes and scored 13 points, going 3 for 6 from 3-point range. ... Fields played 35 minutes, scored 13 points and had 6 assists and 1 turnover.