The Big East Conference in basketball formed in 1979. In the past 29 seasons, only two teams have gone winless in league play.

The team Pitt plays this afternoon is trying to avoid becoming the third.

DePaul is 0-10 in the Big East entering the game today against the No. 6 Panthers and wants to avoid becoming a piece of conference trivia. The other teams that failed to win a conference game were Boston College (0-6) in 1979-80 and Miami (0-18) in 1993-94.

DePaul has eight more tries to get its first victory, but the Blue Demons face a tough road. This is the first of two games against Pitt, and they have two more of their remaining games against other ranked foes.

DePaul, the only team in the conference without a league win, has struggled mightily. Its 10 losses have been by an average margin of 13.5 points per game and only two games have been decided by single digits.

The Blue Demons are at or near the bottom of the conference in nearly every statistical category, including shooting percentage, rebounding, scoring offense and scoring defense.

It would be easy for Pitt to look past this game with West Virginia coming to town Monday night, but the Panthers contend that the Blue Demons have their full attention.

"We're not going to look past anybody," junior guard Jermaine Dixon said. "We need every victory we can get. Even though they don't have any victories in the Big East, they're going to come out and compete. They're going to play hard. We know that.

"A lot of their guys go hard. They fought Marquette hard. They took them down to the wire. They made a big comeback. We know they're going to play hard, but we'll be ready."

DePaul played tough Tuesday night against Marquette, the only undefeated team in Big East play until a loss last night at South Florida. Marquette won, 76-61, but DePaul trailed by five at halftime and pulled within eight points with a little more than five minutes remaining.

The Blue Demons played that game without leading scorer Dar Tucker, who sprained an ankle during shoot-around before that game. His status for the Pitt game was in question yesterday.

Without Tucker, freshman guard Will Walker led the Blue Demons with 30 points against the Golden Eagles.

"Dar is a very dynamic player, but we moved the ball as well as we have all year without him," De-Paul coach Jerry Wainwright said. "Sometimes, out of adversity there is a direction that you find. I told them you'll be better if you move the ball the way you did against Marquette."

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon acknowledged that DePaul is a much different team without Tucker, but he prepared his team as if Tucker will be back.

"They were completely different without him," Dixon said. "He can really score. But, when he's not in there, other guys are getting shots. We've been practicing as if he's going to play. That's been our mind-set."

With or without Tucker, De-Paul will be primed to welcome the highly ranked Panthers into Allstate Arena. The Blue Demons have earned six of their eight victories there, the most recent one coming Dec. 28 against Alcorn State.

"We know they'll come out scrappy," Pitt senior Sam Young said.

"They're at home, so, once they get anything going, they're going to be fired up. And to play against a team like us, I know they're going to get up for this game. We have to go there prepared. If we don't, we could be in for a long night. We want to get going early and pretty much take control in the first half."

Matchup: No. 6 Pitt (20-2, 7-2 Big East) vs. DePaul (8-15, 0-10), 2 p.m. today, Allstate Arena, Rosemont, Ill.

TV/Radio/Internet: FSN Pittsburgh, WWSW-FM (94.5), WBGG-AM (970), www.pittsburghpanthers.com.

Pitt: Coming off 92-72 victory against Robert Morris. ... Has won four of the past five games ... Is 3-2 in Big East road games and 26-15 in conference road games under coach Jamie Dixon. ... 3-0 against DePaul since the Blue Demons joined Big East. ... Led by senior F Sam Young (18.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg), sophomore C DeJuan Blair (14.9 ppg, 12.7 rpg) and senior G Levance Fields (11.0 ppg, 7.0 apg).

DePaul: Coming off 76-61 loss against Marquette. ... Only winless team in Big East play. ... Led by sophomore Dar Tucker (18.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg), F Mac Koshwal (13.5 ppg, 10.0 rpg) and G Will Walker (13.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg).

Hidden stat: Dixon is the only coach in Pitt history to win 20 games in six seasons in a row.

Skinny: DePaul is only winless team in Big East conference play and could be without top scorer Dar Tucker.