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Fields, Pittsburgh hold off Washington

Dec 9, 2007 - 2:50 AM SEATTLE (Ticker) -- Levance Fields and Pittsburgh held on by just tenths of a second.

Fields scored a season-high 20 points as the ninth-ranked Panthers posted a 75-74 victory over Washington on Saturday.

Freshman DeJuan Blair scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half and also hauled in 14 rebounds and Mike Cook scored 14 for Pittsburgh, which improved to 9-0 for the sixth straight season.

"This is a great win for us against a team that played very well," Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said. "Everybody knows how much respect I have for Coach (Lorenzo) Romar and their program."

Panthers forward Sam Young, who entered this game as the team's leading scorer (18.6 points) and rebounder (8.5), also had a big second half, scoring 10 points - including eight in the final two minutes. The 6-6 junior finished with 14 points.

For all of Pittsburgh's output, it nearly lost in the final second.

With the Panthers leading, 75-74, Fields missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with six seconds left, allowing Huskies guard Justin Dentmon to race up the court, get into the lane and throw up a runner as the buzzer sounded to seemingly win the game.

"I was taught in that situation to try and get the shot off," Dentmon said. "I had already made up my mind to take it."

The officials went to the replay as the Washington crowd started to celebrate on the court. However, after several minutes, the referees overturned the final basket when they saw the 5-11 junior still had the ball on his fingertips as the game clock reached zero.

"Never been in (that situation) and hope to never be in it again," Dixon said. "The players kept coming over saying it wasn't good. Then we saw some people at the table saying it wasn't good, too, so during that time we kind of had an inkling."

"It was frustrating not knowing," Dentmon said. "It is really hard because you have it and then they take it away from you and it feels like everything just went bad."

Other than his missed free throw, Fields was the difference for Pittsburgh.

The Panthers trailed by three at halftime, but the deficit could have been more if Fields had not made a jumper with 74 seconds left to reduce the Huskies' lead to eight points. He also nailed a 3-pointer with six ticks on the clock to make it 37-34 for Washington at the half.

Fields, a native of Brooklyn, New York, connected on 7-of-9 from the floor.

"The Pitt team was a very good," Romar said. "Fields did a good job controlling his team."

In the second half, Washington led by three after a jumper by Joe Wolfinger at the 18:20 mark upped its lead to 42-39. However, Pittsburgh went on a 14-5 spurt, capped by two free throws by Cook, to give the Panthers a 53-47 advantage with 12:42 left.

The game remained close, with Fields converting two free throws with 22 seconds remaining to give Pittsburgh a 75-71 edge before a 3-pointer by Ryan Appleby 13 seconds later cut Washington's deficit to one.

Appleby scored 18 points and Jon Brockman had 17 and 12 rebounds for the Huskies (4-4), who have lost four of their last five games.

"Our guys were hanging in there all the way to the end," Romar said.