NEW YORK -- This was back in late-February, on the night Pitt beat Cincinnati at the Petersen Events Center. Guard Levance Fields -- in just his fourth game back after missing nearly seven weeks with a broken foot -- clanked seven of his first eight shots but had the nerve to take and make the big 3 that buried the Bearcats.

Something Fields said after that game stuck with me.

"I think my best is yet to come ... I know I'll be clutch for us."

That thought kept Fields going as he struggled to find his game after the long layoff. He never lost his focus, never lost sight of this time of year, the best time of the year in college basketball. He was going to get a second chance to salvage his season, and darned if he was going to waste it. Those hours and hours of rehab after his foot was broken at Dayton Dec. 29 seemed like a small price to pay.

Last night was the big payoff.

For Fields and for Pitt.

It's fair to think the Panthers wouldn't have survived Marquette, 68-61, and lengthened yet another remarkable stay in the Big East Conference tournament if Fields hadn't come up huge at the end. It wasn't so much his drive to the basket with Pitt up, 62-59, and desperately trying to hold off a Marquette team that had fought back from 16 points down in the second half. It was the confidence he took to the free-throw line after he was fouled.

"I love to be in that situation," Fields would say early this morning before rushing back to the team hotel to get his rest, his and Pitt's date against Georgetown in the tournament championship game tonight barely 18 hours away.

"I know my teammates are counting on me to come through."

The foul line had not been kind to Pitt in this tournament. It nearly got the Panthers beat Thursday night against Louisville when DeJuan Blair missed two free throws in the final minute of regulation. Last night, before Fields made two to give Pitt a 62-52 lead with 4:33 left, the Panthers had made just 8 of 18.

Now, Fields was at the line again, Pitt's season very much on the line.

"I thought I looked relaxed, but maybe I didn't," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said, smiling. "I mean, he's made them all his career."

The two Fields made this time gave Pitt breathing room. When Sam Young made two more with 34.2 seconds left, Pitt had its win and an almost unbelievable seventh trip in eight years to the conference title game.

"We're very good at making shots at the end of games," Dixon said, giving a what-me-worry? look. "We have very good character and toughness."

Fields is as tough as anybody on the team.

It's no coincidence that Pitt is making this surge at the same time he's rounding into the form that made him the team's best player before his injury.

"A lot of people thought it was going to be easy to come back and be ready to go right away," Dixon said. "Even Levance probably thought it was going to be easier than it was ...

"I thought it would take us two weeks for him to get into it, us getting used to him and him just getting his legs and getting knocked down a few times. So I think I just kept encouraging him. I think there was some frustration at times with Levance, but he got through it and our guys have confidence in him.

"We're where we wanted to be right now."

Fields still isn't shooting well. He made 3 of 10 shots last night and is an abysmal 8 for 31 in the tournament.

Still, there's no one on the Pitt team that you want to have the ball in his hands late in a game more than Fields. It's his confidence that his next shot is going in.

"I'm not scared to take the big shot," Fields said. "I'm not afraid to take the so-called blame."

I don't know about you, I love fearless players. Carl Krauser played that way at Pitt. Brandin Knight did it before him.

Knight did it well enough that he willed Pitt to the Big East tournament title in 2003, its only win in those six trips to the championship game.

Now, Fields has a chance to do it against a terrific Georgetown team. It's a tough assignment because of Georgetown's amazing depth and the fact it will be playing on fresher legs. Having played just two games here to Pitt's three is a huge advantage.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't give Pitt much of a chance, but something else Fields said this morning gave me pause again.

"We're happy about being here and we know this is a special spot to be in. But we want to finish it out.

"It's time we cash it in and get this championship."

You might be willing to dismiss that as false bravado.

Not me.

I've found Fields to be a man of his word.