ShareThisIs Pitt guard Levance Fields a beauty or what? Not only did he hit the key shot Thursday night to beat Xavier to send the Panthers to where they've never been during this golden era of Pitt men's basketball, he put the historic night in perfect perspective in the joyous moments after the throbbing 60-55 win.
"It's great," Fields said of Pitt's first trip to the NCAA tournament's Round of 8 in this decade -- at long last -- after seven consecutive years of trying and coming up short. "It kind of gets the monkey off our back. But we came here to win two games."
You have to like the way that kid thinks, right?
Pitt has come this far, so why not beat Villanova Saturday night and go to the Final Four?
Really, why not?
The pressure certainly is off now. Sure it is after this win. Absolutely it is after Pitt shrugged off a DeJuan Blair bloody nose and a Fields cut mouth and roared back from a 37-29 halftime deficit to dispose of a gritty Xavier team.
No matter what happens tomorrow, this season will be remembered as a huge success.
But why not make it one to remember forever?
Turns out Pitt senior Sam Young is thinking the same way.
"This definitely means a lot," he said of that whole Elite Eight business. "The players, the coaches, the university and the city have being waiting for it a long time. But, at the same time, we feel like we've still got work to do."
The best thing is Pitt has yet to play its best game in this tournament. It was horrible in the opener against East Tennessee State and, in many respects, was lucky to win. It had a bad second-half stretch against Oklahoma State in the second round, blowing an 11-point lead before retaking control. And then Pitt was -- in coach Jamie Dixon's words -- "pushed around" in the first half when Xavier took that eight-point lead.
But the pressure had to have a lot to do with all of that. You can't convince me otherwise. No team came into the tournament with more pressure.
A big reason was Pitt's wonderful regular-season success, which included making it to No. 1 in the polls for the first time, beating a No. 1 opponent for the first time and getting a No. 1 seed in the NCAAs for the first time. It was supposed to take a deep run in the tournament. It was expected to play in the East Region final for the right to go to Detroit for the Final Four.
But Pitt also had those previous seven years of ignominious history working against it, seven years of kicking at the Elite Eight door and ending up with nothing more than a bruised foot. If Pitt had come up short again, the season would be considered -- fairly or not -- a failure.
That's a heavy, heavy burden.
Now that it's been shed, don't be surprised if Pitt plays a strong game vs. Villanova.
"We're a confident group," Fields said.
It showed Thursday night after Pitt found itself in a deep, eight-point hole at halftime, having been out-rebounded, 23-16, in the first half. As Dixon often has said, "If we don't rebound, we're not playing to our strength."
Pitt rebounded in the second half, getting seven more boards than Xavier. Blair, who had two points and four rebounds in the first half, had eight and 13 in the second.
"They pushed us around in the first half, but we responded in the second half -- as we usually do," Dixon said.
Pitt's poise and confidence also showed at the end. Fields, who made a big 3-point shot late to help turn back Oklahoma State, hit a monster of a 3 to give Pitt a 55-54 lead with 50.9 seconds to go. Then it was the defense's turn. Gilbert Brown hounded Xavier's B.J. Raymond enough that Blair was able to tip away the ball to Fields, who scored a breakaway for a 57-54 lead. After another defensive stop, Young then sealed the deal with two free throws.
"These kids have done so many things right all year long," Dixon said. "They've challenged each other. They've been unselfish. They've sacrificed for one another."
They're still playing because of it.
After Friday night, only seven other teams will be able to say that.
And here's the really neat thing: The Pitt players aren't planning to call it a season anytime soon.
(Contact Ron Cook at rcook@post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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