Pitt sophomore Ronald Ramon and his teammates recorded their 20th victory of the season in Wednesday's 85-77 win at Providence. It marked a school-record fifth straight season in which the Panthers reached that milestone.

PITTSBURGH — Four years ago, a 20-win season was reason to celebrate at Pitt.

It had been 11 years since the Panthers had won that many games and 2001-02 was only the ninth such season in school history.

But when Pitt defeated Providence 85-77 Wednesday night for their third consecutive victory and 20th of the season, it marked the fifth year in a row the Panthers had won that many games.

The program now has higher aspirations.

"We came into this year thinking we'd get 20 wins," reserve guard Keith Benjamin said. "A lot of people didn't really think we could. But that's not important to us right now. We know we're in the (NCAA) tournament now, but we want more wins. We want as many wins as we can get out of this season for this team. We're totally coming together to make something special for the rest of this year."

As the No. 9 team in the country, for the Panthers (20-3, 9-3 Big East) that means a Big East tournament title and a deeper run into the NCAA tournament. Pitt has four regular-season games left, starting with Marquette at 9 p.m. Saturday in Milwaukee.

"You see teams go one or two years and get into a run of winning 20 games," said coach Jamie Dixon. "You start to separate yourself with three, four or five years winning those many games. It's a sign of where you're at. Now you want to go to another level."

Dixon is the only coach in school history to win 20 games in each of his first three seasons. The school previously never had four 20-win seasons in a row.

Though Dixon would concede nothing about the Panthers' already-secure NCAA tournament prospects, it is clear that the Panthers now are playing for seeding. Pitt was a No. 2 or No. 3 seed during each of its three round-of-16 NCAA appearances this decade. Last year, it entered the tournament as a No. 9 seed and lost in the first round to No. 8 seed Pacific, 79-71.

"If you can open against a low seed from a small conference, getting that first win is the most important thing in the tournament," said Benjamin, who has scored 31 points in the past two games.

"Then you get that first win, get back and get that second win and get to the Sweet 16 and break the curse," he said, referring to Pitt's inability to clear the third round.

Pitt has lost to only one unranked team this season, and the only ranked team the Panthers have left on their schedule is No. 11 West Virginia on Feb. 27. Still, Dixon said the threat of overconfidence or overlooking opponents is not possible playing in the brutal Big East.

"We've had very good practices lately and I expect to have a good practice (Friday)," Dixon said. "And when you practice well, you play well. We're going to keep that focus level up."