The Big East Conference released its men's basketball schedule for the 2007-08 season and the league certainly didn't do Pitt any favors.

The Panthers must play road games at Connecticut, Marquette, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Villanova.

Pitt plays Villanova at home and will play host to Georgetown and Louisville.

Along with the Wildcats, the Panthers will play home-and-home series against West Virginia and Cincinnati. The rest of Pitt's home conference schedule will include DePaul, Providence, Rutgers and Seton Hall.

The Panthers also will travel to St. John's and South Florida.

The highlight of Pitt's non-conference schedule is a nationally televised game against Duke Dec. 20 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The two teams are expected to be ranked in the top 20 and haven't met since 1980.

The Duke game is tentatively Pitt's only neutral-site game, but that could change as Pitt officials are working with Duquesne to get the annual City Game moved from the Palumbo Center to Mellon Arena.

If the two sides can reach an agreement on moving the game, it would mark the first time the game was played at a neutral site since 2001. That marked the end of a run of 12 consecutive City Games that were played at Mellon Arena.

The rest of Pitt's non-conference schedule includes trips to Washington and Dayton as well as home games against Oklahoma State and Buffalo. Pitt also is finalizing details to bring Saint Louis and Lafayette to the Petersen Center and is working on putting together a preseason tournament that would include Houston Baptist, North Carolina A&T and a third team.

West Virginia's conference schedule beyond its two games against Pitt includes trips to Connecticut, Louisville, Notre Dame and Villanova and the Mountaineers' home schedule is highlighted with visits from Georgetown, Marquette and Syracuse.

The Pitt women's team is closing in on a deal to play Duke at Madison Square Garden in November as part of the Maggie Dixon Classic.

The second game of the doubleheader would feature the Army women's team, where Dixon was the head coach before her sudden death in April 2006.