WASHINGTON – “No game is over.”

Pitt freshman Levance Fields couldn’t have been more right…. WASHINGTON – “No game is over.”

Pitt freshman Levance Fields couldn’t have been more right.

After trailing by 10 with less than 40 seconds to play against Georgetown, Pitt came within a missed buzzer-beater from Ronald Ramon of sending a once afterthought of a contest into overtime, ultimately falling 61-58 to the Hoyas.

“I thought we battled back in the last minute and executed really well in the end,” Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon said. “We did the right things, and Levance [Fields] made a great pass to Ronald. You’re not going to get a better shot than what we got.”

After taking the lead with 9:38 to play, Georgetown never looked back, stretching its advantage to 10 points at 59-49 with 38 seconds to play.

Maybe they should have checked their rear-view mirror.

After Brandon Bowman fouled Carl Krauser with 30 seconds to play, the Panthers exploded. Krauser made his second free throw and stole the inbounds pass from Ashanti Cook, hitting a 3-pointer with 26 seconds left to make it 59-53.

The Panthers fouled Jeff Green, who missed the front end of his one-and-one, and then went back down the floor and scored when Ronald Ramon sank a trey of his own. The Hoyas’ lead was down to three.

Pitt fouled again, and again Georgetown missed the front end of the bonus. Fields took the rebound the length of the floor and hit a layup with six seconds to play, cutting the Georgetown lead to a single point.

Darrel Owens sank both free throws after Ramon fouled him with three seconds left. But Pitt came within inches of defying the odds. Fields again took the ball the length of the floor and found Ramon for a wide-open 3. The ball caught the front of the rim, and time expired.

Despite the wild ending, the game’s first half gave no indication of what the final outcome would be, as the Panthers overcame an early 6-0 deficit to eventually lead 35-28 at halftime. After Green tied the game at 18, Pitt held Georgetown without a basket for the next 6:36, going on a 15-0 run highlighted by six points and two assists from Aaron Gray.

Despite the lead, however, the first half created problems for the Panthers.

“We felt so good coming into halftime, but we got a little too excited,” Gray said.

Fields agreed, saying that when Pitt came out for the second half, their eyes were too big.

“A couple shots [that] we probably should have held back on we took because of how we shot in the first half,” he explained. After shooting 51.9 percent from the floor in the first half, the Panthers hit just eight of their 24 second-half attempts.

But the solid first half wasn’t enough to satisfy Dixon.

“We should have been up by more [at halftime], but we made mistakes at the end of the half,” he said.

The Hoyas didn’t go away. They rode a 20-7 run through halftime and pulled within two points of Pitt at 40-38 when Bowman took a long outlet pass and laid it off to Wallace, who hit a lay up

Pitt was forced to call a timeout after the run, and when they came back, Fields entered the game for the first time in the half. He promptly got open and drained a basket to put the Panthers up by four and quell the Georgetown attack for the time being.

The Hoyas didn’t stay away for long. Krauser was fouled shooting a 3-pointer, and he hit all three free throws to stretch the Pitt lead to 45-38. But Green again stopped the Pitt run, hitting a layup as he Krauser fouled him.

Georgetown’s defense then broke up a Fields pass on the Pitt end, and their offense made sure the effort didn’t go to waste.

Jonathan Wallace muscled his way through a hard screen at the left elbow, then got open to drain a trey from the top of the key.

An errant Fields jumper hit the side of the backboard on the Panthers’ next possession, and Georgetown took the rebound down the floor, where Bowman hit a layup to tie the game. Ramon answered with a bucket to make it 47-45, but then Bowman responded with a 3-pointer that gave the Hoyas a lead they would never relinquish.

While the Panthers negated Georgetown’s leading scorer, Roy Hibbert – after scoring six points in the opening 2:22, he didn’t make another field goal – they had no answer for Green.

The forward made four of his first five 3-point attempts, and finished the game 9-for-14 from the floor. He scored 22 points to lead all scorers.

Gray kept Pitt close in the opening minutes, leading the way as Pitt jumped out to their leads. The center ended up with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting in the opening 20 minutes.

But in the second half, Georgetown’s defense took him out of the game, forcing him to miss all four of his field goal attempts.

“They put another two, three guys on me, and I made bad decisions,” he said of his lack of production in the second half.

Gray finished the game with 11 rebounds to tally a double-double, pacing the Panthers as they out-rebounded the Hoyas 35-23.

Pitt is back in action Thursday when the Panthers will play host to the sole undefeated team in conference play, the West Virginia Mountaineers. Tip-off is set for 9 p.m.