2008-09 Pitt basketball – ‘The General’ – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Interactive

'The General'
Other players may have been better or bigger, but nobody was more important for these Panthers than Levance Fields.

Levance Fields flips a pass over the head of Louisville's Edgar Sosa in the first half Saturday, Jan. 17, 2009, in Louisville, Ky. (Ed Reinke/Associated Press)

'The General'

Other players may have been better or bigger, but nobody was more important for these Panthers than Levance Fields.

Craig Meyer
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
April 5, 2019

The freshman with 110 games remaining in his college career walked off the court in March 2006 as if he had just played his last.

As those around the program recalled, Levance Fields was visibly hurt, struggling emotionally to take himself away from the court following Pitt’s second-round upset loss to Bradley in the NCAA tournament that year.

To those who saw it, the scene struck a chord. It was a signal that, in the best way possible, this was a different kind of guy, the kind around which the Panthers could build for years to come, well beyond that mournful day in Auburn Hills, Mich.

On a 31-win team with two players who would get drafted by NBA teams following the season, there was no more instrumental player in Pitt’s success during its 2008-09 Elite Eight run than a stocky, 5-foot-10 point guard who carried himself with an unflappability and a swagger of someone a foot taller.

Fields, as everybody who knew him, was “The General,” described by teammates and coaches as an engine, the straw that stirred the drink and the heartbeat of the team. Whatever the cliché of choice was, the point was clear – he was the guy on the kind of team that such a designation really meant something. Other players may have been better — bigger, stronger and more talented, with the upside teams at the next level crave — but nobody was more important.

“I’ve never seen a point guard control a game like that, from his attitude to his approach to his demeanor,” Tray Woodall said. “To have a guy with a close to a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover

Levance Fields brings the ball down court against Syracuse in the first half Monday, Jan. 19, 2009. (Keith Srakocic/Associated Press)

ratio who handled the ball as much as he did and had just as much a responsibility for the team as the head coach, it was weird because you felt that. Obviously, it was coach [Jamie] Dixon’s team, but The General, he had just as much of a responsibility as a head coach.”

That status he enjoyed came from the position he played and, more important, the way he played it. His 270 assists that season are a program record, and his 7.6 assists-per-game average was second among all Division I players in 2008-09. With a 3.8:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, he allowed one of college basketball’s most efficient offenses to hum the way it did.

His lofty standing was also due to his personality, the sheer force and power of it.

A Brooklyn native, Fields embodied many of the brashest characteristics of a New York City baller. He was supremely confident, but in an endearing way, one that would attract his teammates to him rather than alienate them. Athletic trainer Tony Salesi can recall a panelist from ESPN’s ‘Around the Horn’ — he couldn’t remember exactly who it was — coming by the Petersen Events Center one day, only for Fields to say something to the effect of, “You’re not very good. You always lose.”

He was a combination of meticulous and mercilessly competitive that could, at times, make him seem almost vengeful. Four months before Brad Wanamaker’s freshman year began in 2007, the guard scored 29 points on his soon-to-be teammate in a win in a summer-league game. What could have been easily dismissed as an off day in a meaningless scrimmage was anything but to Fields.

“He took that game personally,” Wanamaker said. “My freshman year, he let me know about it every day in practice. He would come into practice with the mindset, ‘I’m going to kill Brad.’ He had some days where he would just torch me and let me know, ‘You can’t check me, young bull, you freshman. Don’t get your head all hyped up.’ It was crazy.”

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 University of Brad Wanamaker, left, greets Levance Fields before the team leaves the Petersen Events Center on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, for the NCAA Tournament in Boston. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)

Brad Wanamaker greets Levance Fields before the team leaves the Petersen Events Center on Tuesday, March 24, 2009, for the NCAA Tournament in Boston. (Rebecca Droke/Post-Gazette)

There was a directness and bluntness to the way Fields interacted with teammates and even coaches, something both parties ultimately appreciated. He was an iron fist cloaked in a velvet glove, verbally pounding his teammates every day between trash talk and lighting them up if they made a mistake, but he did so to toughen them up and elevate their intensity. Whatever he said, hurtful and sharp as it may have felt in the moment, was only said because he cared about that person and wanted them to get better.

Nothing better embodied that drive and his scrupulous nature than the way Fields approached his greatest statistical asset — racking up assists.

Those assists were precious commodities, not only because they added to his outrageous stat line and his burgeoning reputation, but if he did well, the team usually did, too. He would needle sports information director Greg Hotchkiss and the statisticians courtside about crediting him with an assist if they were unsure at all about it. If a teammate failed to convert a prime scoring opportunity that Fields orchestrated, there would be hell to pay and ire to face.

“That was me, all the time,” Ashton Gibbs said. “That’s why I had to make shots. He would constantly tell me, ‘Listen, if you’re not making open 3s, then I’m not passing you the ball.’”

Those traits and eccentricities weren’t borne from selfishness; in fact, whatever ego he had was seldom visible in his play, at least in a negative way. He was the consummate place-setter, knowing how to best utilize his teammates and get them the best, most open shots. With three future NBA players on the roster, there were mouths to feed and nobody was capable of nourishing them like Fields.

When it came to a game’s biggest, most consequential moments, his bravado and poise turned a distributor into a go-to scorer.

Any question of who Pitt players trusted with the last shot in a big game would quickly elicit an answer of Fields, if only because he had proven it so many times in the past. With the Panthers trailing Duke by two with five seconds left in overtime at Madison Square Garden in 2007, it was Fields who hit a step-back 3-pointer from the top of the key to give his team a momentous win. In a Sweet 16 win against Xavier 15 months later, Fields buried a deep 3 to put Pitt up one with 56 seconds remaining before adding a steal and layup on the ensuing possession. The only reason the heartbreak Scottie Reynolds brought upon Pitt in the Elite Eights two nights later was even possible was because Fields made two pressure-soaked free throws to tie the game with 5.5 seconds remaining.

“If it came down to the last shot, there was no question,” Woodall said. “Sam Young knew Levance was going to get the ball. DeJuan Blair knew Levance was going to get the ball. Coach Dixon, before the moment even happens, he knows he’s getting the ball. He doesn’t have to draw a play up for that guy.”

There was something innate about Fields’ late-game steadiness, even when things seemed so uncertain for everyone else out on the court. In a 2007 victory at Washington, the Panthers watched as the Huskies made what appeared to be a game-winning runner at the buzzer. The officials went to the monitor to review the play, seeking an answer Fields already had.

“He came over to our broadcast location and just said, ‘It’s not good. Don’t worry about it,’” said Bill Hillgrove, Pitt’s radio broadcaster. “Sure enough, it wasn’t. That confidence, you can’t replace that.”

Fields’ final season with the Panthers becomes that much more impressive considering he underwent bone graft surgery three months before his team’s season opener in 2008. For all the late-game heroics and all the perfectly timed passes, Dixon said he still doesn’t believe his point guard was ever fully healthy that season.

While Pitt has had good point guards that have followed Fields — Woodall, James Robinson and now Xavier Johnson, to name a few — it hasn’t had someone quite like The General. After all, how could it?

“It’s crazy because I see a lot of Tom Brady stories about how he pours his heart into the game, how he studies the game and how every detail matters,” Woodall said. “It starts to make me realize that’s kind of how Levance was. I’m glad I was able to be around that.”

Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG