The Pitt Panthers’ undefeated season may have been happening under the radar before they… The Pitt Panthers’ undefeated season may have been happening under the radar before they played the Louisville Cardinals on Sunday.

Not anymore.

Head coach Jamie Dixon and the Panthers (14-0 overall, 3-0 Big East) handed Louisville their third loss to a ranked opponent in as many tries this season with a 61-57 dogfight victory to stay among the ranks of college basketball’s undefeated.

Both the Panthers and the Cardinals (13-3, 1-2) displayed just how physical the Big East conference is, proving that the first team to 50 indeed will win.

With just under seven minutes to play, Levance Fields hit a two-point jumper to put Pitt ahead 51-47.

Coincidence? Not according to Louisville head coach Rick Pitino.

“That was a very physical basketball game,” Pitino said. “This is a football league in a basketball league.”

In the game’s early stages, however, the Cardinals didn’t seem to know that.

Lead by guard Juan Palacios, Louisville started an unbelievable 6-6 from 3 in the first half to put the struggling Panthers down by as many as eight.

But Fields, Dixon’s tough freshman point guard, single-handedly ignited a stale Pitt offense that shot a dismal 29 percent from the field in the first half. Fields accounted for eight of the Panthers’ 25 first-half points, and finished with a team-high 13.

Although relatively surprising to those unfamiliar with Pitt, Fields’ performance was nothing new to Dixon.

“It’s not a surprise at all,” Dixon said. “Levance is a good shooter and his numbers also speak the same.”

“In practice we always put ourselves in our situations where we know that us young guys have to step up,” Fields said. “Today I just got all the shots and was able to make them.”

Fields wasn’t the only player on the floor making shots.

Louisville’s Terrence Williams led all scorers with a career-high 25 points, shooting 9-for-14 from the field and 3-of-5 from behind the arc.

However, what the Cardinals got from their starters, the Panthers got from their bench. The Pitt reserves combined to outscore Louisville’s, 30-5.

“Different guys were stepping up to make plays,” Dixon said. “I can’t single out one guy.”

One guy who perhaps benefited the most from the Panther bench availability was junior Aaron Gray, who tallied his first foul within the first two minutes. Gray only played six minutes in the first half, scoring just two points and grabbing a meager two rebounds.

But the rest proved to be beneficial for the 7-footer. Gray finished with his ninth double-double of the season with 10 points and 12 rebounds.

Two of Gray’s 10 points came with about eight and a half minutes to play when the center crept behind the Cardinal zone, got the feed from freshman Sam Young and slammed the ball home to tie the game, silencing the more than 20,000 in attendance and making the rims at the Freedom Center feel the pain of those at the Pete.

Soon after, the Panthers gained the lead, completed an 8-0 run and poised themselves for a victory.

Louisville had other plans, though.

Cardinals superstar Taquan Dean entered the game with about a minute left, nursing an ankle injury that he’d re-aggravated in the first half. Even a hurt ankle couldn’t fully stop Dean. Falling away from the basket, he sank a 3 to narrow the Cardinal deficit to two.

After Carl Krauser missed two free throws at the other end, Dean had a chance to do it again with four seconds left.

But he couldn’t.

His second 3-point attempt rattled out, and Gray was there to grab the board, get fouled, sink two free throws and seal the deal on the Panthers’ biggest win of the season.

The second half proved to be critical for Pitt, which managed to shoot 48 percent from the field, 5-of-9 from 3.

“We rushed our shots in the first half but we came out and corrected our mistakes in the second,” Krauser said.

This was the first of three consecutive road games for Pitt. They play at Rutgers on Wednesday and at St. John’s on Saturday.

Loose Balls: Louisville started the game 7-for-7 from 3-pointrange-Nine different Panthers logged double-digits in minutes-Five Panthers scored at least eight points, led by Fields’ 13-Pitt held its opponent to less than 60 points for the 12th time this season-The Panthers remain one of three Division I-A teams with unbeaten records (Duke is 16-0, Florida stands at 16-0).