DENVER – The honeymoon stage is over.

After a weekend-long Big East championship celebration… DENVER – The honeymoon stage is over.

After a weekend-long Big East championship celebration that spilled over into the early business week, it’s time for Pitt to return to work. The fourth-seeded Panthers take on Oral Roberts today at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time here at the Pepsi Center.

Pitt (26-9) won four games in four days at the Big East tournament in New York City last week, culminating with a 74-65 title-game victory against Georgetown, which is a No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region. The only other time a Big East team won four games in four days to win the league tournament came in 2006, when Syracuse ran the table. The Orange, however, lost their first game of the NCAA Tournament, 65-58, to 12th-seeded Texas A’M.

The Panthers are certain that won’t happen to them this time. To avoid it, Pitt guard Keith Benjamin said, they are focused on continuing their progress from last week.

“We just have to keep playing team basketball,” Benjamin said. “If we just play together and stay focused, we’re good.”

Nothing comes easily in the NCAA Tournament, especially for teams forced to travel more than 1,000 miles to their first game. A recent study by the News and Observer in Raleigh, N.C., revealed that teams traveling more than 500 miles win just 46.5 percent of the time. The Panthers have traveled more than 1,400 miles for their first- and second-round games.

It doesn’t help that it’s a mile above sea level here, making the air thinner and harder to breathe. As a result, less oxygen is taken in with each breath, forcing the body to overcompensate by breathing harder. Teams from lower locations can have trouble adjusting.

But the Panthers have been able to practice five on five for most of March, something that will benefit the overall fitness of the team through the rest of the season.

Four serious injuries, chiefly a season-ending ACL tear to starting wing Mike Cook and a fractured foot suffered by star point guard Levance Fields, and nagging injuries to starters Benjamin (infected finger), Ronald Ramon (both shoulders), DeJuan Blair (knee), Gilbert Brown (shoulder) and Sam Young (both knees) kept Pitt from playing full-contact in practice. It limited the team’s aggressiveness in games and had Pitt coach Jamie Dixon constantly worried about foul trouble.

With the team at full strength, altitude and distance seem like minimal problems.

“This team has had every reason to improve,” Dixon said. “We got through [the injuries], learned from them and moved on. Now we’re playing our best basketball.”

Added Ramon, “It’s all about going out on the court and not worrying about everything else. Every other team that’s going to step on the court is going to play the same way, [in] the same atmosphere, the same stage that we are playing on. We just have to make sure we go out there and play.”

Against an Oral Roberts (24-8) team that will play in its third consecutive NCAA Tournament, Pitt will need to debunk the unfavorable stats pertaining to altitude and travel and do it against an experienced, winning team. Oral Roberts starts four seniors and one junior.

“Very few teams have been in the NCAA Tournament three years in a row,” Dixon said. “They seem to become a better team each year. They are well coached with a lot of seniors. Those are the teams that do well.”

Dixon noted the quickness of Oral Roberts’ backcourt. The Golden Eagles start two guards – 6-foot-6 junior Moses Ehambe and 6-2 senior Adam Liberty – and bring a third, 5-11 junior Robert Jarvis, off the bench. The trio makes up for 37.5 points a game for Oral Roberts, with Jarvis’ 16.1 points per contest leading the way.

“They have a great range,” Dixon said. “Jarvis helps them become very dangerous. They just have a dynamic trio in terms of perimeter scoring.”

Oral Roberts’ defense is similar to Pitt’s: It’s hard-nosed, man-to-man defense with an emphasis on rebounding and wearing down opponents.

“Being tough is going to be extremely important,” Ehambe said. “I think most importantly it’s being tough mentally. Being physical, physically tough and mentally tough is going to be a huge key for the game tomorrow.”

Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton echoed Ehambe’s sentiment.

“Pitt is probably playing as well as anybody in the country,” Sutton said. “We have to match their toughness. We’ve tried to get our guys ready for it, not only physically but mentally, fighting through some things.”

To prepare his team for Pitt, Sutton had the scout team – Oral Roberts’ backups – play extra physical basketball in practice.

“We just told them to do whatever they wanted to do to the starters,” Sutton said, smiling. “Grab them. Hack them. Push them. That’s basically what they’ve done the last three days. I don’t know if it will work or not, but it was about the only thing we could try.

“That will be a big key [today] – how our guys respond to Pitt’s toughness.”