It was fitting that in a game in which Pitt's Levance Fields reached a scoring milestone, the accomplishment was overshadowed by the playmaking ability of the Panthers' senior point guard.

Fields became the 37th player in school history to score 1,000 points in Pitt's 70-54 victory against Georgetown Saturday at the Verizon Center, but the six points he contributed to the winning effort were dwarfed by his ability to set up his teammates for easy baskets.

Fields handed out eight assists and had no turnovers in a performance that defined his role as leader and unselfish set-up man. With the eight assists, Fields increased his Big East Conference-leading total to 91 on the season.

"A point guard's job isn't to score all the time," Fields said. "I take my share of shots here and there when we need it, but obviously with the team we have I just try to get everyone the ball."

More important than the assists, Fields leads the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio and is among the top three in Division I in that all-important statistical category that measures a point guard's worth to a team.

"He just has a knack for it, an understanding," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. "He understands the value of the ball and the possession. I wish I could say it's coaching. But he's been doing it since he came here. He has a gift."

Fields is so adept at it that he is Pitt's all-time leader in assist-to-turnover ratio, ahead of the likes of Sean Miller, Ronald Ramon, Darelle Porter and Brandin Knight.

Already firmly etched in the Pitt record books, Fields is aiming to join another exclusive club. He needs 34 assists to become the sixth player in school history to score 1,000 points and hand out 500 assists. Knight, Miller, Porter, Carl Krauser and Jerry McCullough are the only players who have accomplished that feat.

Usually affable with the media, Fields went silent for most of the month of December after some members of the national media wrote that he was "out of shape" when Pitt played in the Legends Classic in Newark, N.J., in late November. One reporter referred to him as "chunky."

The connotation was that Fields did not condition himself well enough during his rehabilitation. When he finally spoke with reporters again before the Rutgers game Dec. 29, he bristled when questions were asked about his health, snapping back at the questioner that his health was no concern.

While Dixon constantly alludes to Fields as a work in progress, Fields has never used his foot injury as an excuse. He maintains that if he is well enough to be on the court then there are no excuses for his performance.

"I feel like I've been playing well all along," Fields said. "They'll keep asking me about it, so I'll have to keep dealing with it, probably until the end of the year. That's fine. As long as I'm out there I'm fine. I have no excuses. I just go out there and play.

"I don't worry about what people say. I just look at the stat sheet. I played 36 minutes [against Georgetown], which is a lot of minutes being effective. They can say what they want. It's another win for the Pitt team against a team that just beat [Connecticut] on the road. A lot of people didn't think we'd be able to do that."

Not that his teammates have doubted him for a moment. Senior forward Sam Young said Fields is the player who makes things go for the Panthers.

"He's been good all along, but he continues to surprise me," Young said. "I have more confidence in him than anybody."

Fields has struggled with his shot -- he is shooting 38.4 percent from the field -- but the other facets of his game have not been hampered. He has 19 turnovers on the season and appears to be rounding into form. In the past four games he has 24 assists and two turnovers.

Dixon intimated that the Georgetown game was the best to date for Fields.

"Levance is coming," Dixon said. "He felt really good out there [Saturday]. This was the first time he was able to play that many minutes. We just have to keep him working. He'll get back to where he was."