MILWAUKEE -- The Bradley Center's basketball floor was a vaguely desolate urban island Thursday afternoon; the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies practiced on it, but the mostly empty building exaggerated the acoustics -- the rim barked at errant shots, the net snapped at good ones.

In their isolation, the Grizzlies looked like a team no one expects to beat Pitt Friday afternoon, if only because the Grizzlies are a team no one expects to beat Pitt today.

While Oakland dribbled loudly and put up lazy shots, Pitt's Jermaine Dixon ascended to an interview podium not 90 feet away and left nothing to the imagination.

"We feel as though we have the team to get to the championship game and win it," Dixon said.

Really.

What happened to Escape from Grizzly Mountain?

No drama, then, should be anticipated when Pitt goes on this floor for real just before 3 p.m.?

"You have to have that mentality, I think," coach Jamie Dixon said of his senior guard's muscular comments. "I guess when you're asked those things, you gotta express your confidence and belief in your players and your teammates. But I think every team has that belief, and I think we've been pretty focused and we know that Oakland is the first game and the only game right now for us, and that's what we've been talking about since Sunday night."

Even as Pitt's subsequent shoot-around was pierced by loud gasps offstage from media people watching Villanova elude the crazed Colonials of Robert Morris, it was clear these third-seeded Panthers have no reason to believe they won't be playing twice this weekend. It's not just that Oakland, despite winning 11 games in a row and 20 of its past 21, is routinely waxed by major conference powers, and it is not just that Jermaine Dixon's making tentative Final Four plans, and it is not just that Pitt feels so comfortable in Milwaukee, although that last one is certainly tangible.

"We played here [against Marquette] just a couple of weeks ago, and this is where we wanted to be," said Jamie Dixon. "Even the place we practiced at [Marquette's gym], we've practiced at beforehand. So, it's really worked out well for us. We were excited when we were placed in Milwaukee for those reasons. We've had a great week of practice, it's been a beautiful day and our guys had a good workout today."

So the reasons that Pitt might still find itself looking at next year by dinnertime are hard to uncover here along the shores of Lake Michigan, but, for the moment, most searches are arriving at the imposing figure of Keith Benson, the 6-foot-11 Oakland center who led the Summit Conference in blocks, rebounds and double doubles.

"He has good touch outside the paint," said Gary McGhee, Pitt's primary low-post defender. "He can go inside/outside, so I'll have to do a good job being physical with him, not letting him get easy catches inside. He's a really good player."

Denying Benson the entry pass is far easier described than decoded, obviously. Blessed with NBA aptitudes, Benson also has NBA dimensions -- his wing span is 7 feet, 3 inches, which, I believe, is greater than that of the AirTran plane in which I landed in Wisconsin.

Further, the Grizzlies have just enough of an outside presence (6-2 guard Larry Wright had 53 3-pointers this year, more than twice as many as any Panther not named Ashton Gibbs) that Pitt will likely play its half-court man-to-man straight up.

"We're just going to play our defense," said Jermaine Dixon, Pitt's best overall defender. "They're a good team. They've got a great point guard [Johnathon Jones], who has been playing well the four years he's been here. And they've got good 2 and 3 guys on the wings. They do a lot of driving and kicking and driving the lane to get the ball to the big fella. We play our defense, we feel we can play with anybody. We'll get stops, get rebounds.

"There's not anything we're going to do different than we've been doing all year."

I don't know if Pitt will do what it has done all year today, but I do know that Pitt has beaten 84 of its st 90 non-conference opponents. That might not be quite so relevant Sunday, when a second-round opponent definitely will come from a conference you actually have heard of, but, for now, I'm assuming it means something.

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