Take away two key members of a basketball or hockey team for long periods of time and trouble looms, right?

Wrong — at least where the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Penguins are concerned.

Pitt lost senior guard-forward Mike Cook for the season, courtesy of a major knee injury, during the Panthers' spirited upset of Duke in December at Madison Square Garden.

Junior point guard Levance Fields, who hit the game-winning shot against Duke, went down with a broken foot a week later and was sidelined for more than a month.

Playing in a league as competitive as the Big East, that should have spelled trouble. But Pitt entered Friday night's game at Marquette sporting a 7-4 conference record and on solid ground in the league standings.

The Penguins lost goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury for six weeks to a high ankle sprain, then lost superstar center Sidney Crosby for up to eight weeks with the same thing.

In between, injuries to Gary Roberts, Mark Eaton, Tyler Kennedy, Colby Armstrong — the list goes on and on — forced a mass exodus of players from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to Pittsburgh.

Through it all, the Penguins have kept winning. They won eight games and had two overtime losses in their first 12 games without Crosby, and Ty Conklin won 14 of his first 17 decisions in goal since Fleury went down.

The flip side is that neither the Panthers nor the Penguins are out of the woods.

Pitt began a stretch Friday night that included road games at Marquette and Notre Dame, as well as home games vs. Louisville and Cincinnati. The first three are among the cream of the Big East crop and Cincinnati already beat Pitt once this year.

The Penguins are tied for second in the Eastern Conference standings, but the conference race is so tight that they lead the ninth-place teams by only nine points. The top eight teams make the playoffs.

And the Penguins' division might be the toughest in the league, as every team in the Atlantic Division is a viable playoff contender.

The coaches of these respective teams, Jamie Dixon at Pitt, Michel Therrien of the Pens, have won over their critics.

There was disappointment around town when Pitt hired Dixon to replace Ben Howland after the latter moved on to UCLA. Folks wanted a "name" coach to come in and take over the program.

Dixon proved a long time ago that he was capable of sustaining Pitt's success. Now he's proving he can do so through adversity.

When the Penguins got off to a slow start this season, on the heels of their quick playoff exit last year, the Therrien Watch was on. His dismissal appeared imminent.

But the Pens stuck with him, the team began clicking and has continued to do so through an incredible rash of injuries.

Dixon and Therrien are standing the test of adversity.

For their sake, their success must continue.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.