VILLANOVA, Pa. -- With his team down by one and 10 seconds remaining, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon called for the same play that won the Duke game 18 days earlier at Madison Square Garden in New York. Only this time, the Panthers didn't have their clutch point guard to take the shot.

Senior Ronald Ramon, who is filling in at point guard while Levance Fields is out with a fractured foot, failed to get a shot off, and No. 17 Villanova escaped with a 64-63 victory against the No. 13 Panthers at the Pavilion.

Against Duke, Fields pulled up and made a 3-pointer to give Pitt a 65-64 victory. If Ramon had scored, the final score would have been identical. But Villanova trapped Ramon at the top of the key, and he fumbled the ball away.

"It was the same play we ran in the Duke game, basically," senior guard Keith Benjamin explained.

"It's called five-up screen. Sometimes you get a hard hedge like they did, sometimes you don't. There's no way of knowing.

"That time they hedged much harder and trapped at the top. We just lost the ball. They just made a great adjustment. They snuffed it out. In instances like that, you have to think on the fly, and it just didn't work for us today."

It was one of two glaring mistakes in the final minute for Ramon. With Pitt up, 63-62, and 41 seconds remaining, Ramon cut through a double team and made his way to the basket. He had a clear path to the basket, but missed a layup.

On Villanova's final possession, forward Dante Cunningham got fouled and made two free throws with 10.3 seconds left to give the Wildcats (11-2) the deciding points.

It was fitting that the game ended with a Pitt turnover. The Panthers (12-2) committed 22 for the game. It was obvious the Panthers were out of sync without Fields running the show. Ramon and Benjamin had five turnovers each. And Gilbert Brown had four.

Dixon and his players were frustrated afterward because they had played winning basketball otherwise.

The Panthers held Villanova to 34 percent shooting, limited their leading scorer, Scottie Reynolds, to four points and outrebounded the Wildcats by 12. They also made 45.5 percent of their shots and kept battling through constant foul trouble throughout the game.

"Obviously, the turnovers stick out," Dixon said. "We weren't strong enough with the ball. They got a lot of tips and deflections out of [the zone press]. We had to get shots up. Too many times we didn't get shot opportunities. We knew it was coming and we should have been stronger with the ball."

It was Pitt's second game without Fields. The Panthers managed to beat Lafayette Wednesday, but yesterday was the first time they had to handle an athletic group of guards who pressured from start to finish.

Despite the turnover problems, Pitt battled back from a six-point deficit and took a 60-59 lead after Brown slammed home a missed free throw by Ramon with 2:13 to go. On Villanova's next possession, Brown fouled Reynolds on a 3-point attempt. Reynolds made two free throws to give the Wildcats a 62-61 lead.

Pitt beat the press and Brown found Blair inside for a short jumper with 1:36 remaining. But those were the final points of the game for the Panthers, who failed to take advantage of their opportunities in the final minute.

Sam Young led Pitt with 16 points, but he admittedly said the Panthers are struggling to figure out the best course for the team in the wake of losing Fields for the next two months and former starter Mike Cook (knee injury) for the season.

Dixon had to piece together a seven-man rotation yesterday that was riddled with foul trouble and depleted by fatigue by game's end.

"I'm not sure how it's going to be," Young said. "I'm trying to figure it out right now. We're trying to see how everything is going to work. We're trying to figure stuff out, and in the process, try to win games.

And even though Fields' presence was sorely -- and obviously -- missed yesterday, freshman center DeJuan Blair said the Panthers have to quickly come to terms that they won't have him for a long time.

"Levance ... I'd love to have him on the team, but he's not here right now," Blair said. "We have to play with who we got. We just have to keep our heads. We have to have trust in everyone..

"We can't get Levance back. We can't get Cook back.

Someone has to step up. We just have to play through it and not think about it."

NOTES -- Pitt lost for the sixth consecutive time at the Pavilion. The previous time the Panthers won here was in 1994. ... Villanova was 18 for 24 from the free-throw line while Pitt was 8 for 13. ... Villanova scored 28 points off Pitt turnovers. ... The lead changed 15 times.