Pitt is #1

Pittsburgh Panthers ranked No. 1 in men's basketball - ESPN

Pittsburgh has the Steelers pursuing a Super Bowl XLIII berth, one of the brightest young stars in the NHL in Sidney Crosby, and, well, we'll just skip the Pirates.

Now, the city also claims the top-ranked men's college basketball team in the country as its own.

For the first time in the 101 seasons of Pitt basketball, the Panthers are No. 1, making the jump from third in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' rankings on Monday after previously unbeatens North Carolina (to heavy underdog Boston College) and Connecticut (to Georgetown) lost in the last week.

Pitt received 30 of 31 first-place votes, the other going to the third-ranked, 13-1 Tar Heels, as the coaches' top 10 endured a top-to-bottom shakeup.

Pitt improved to 14-0 after winning its first two Big East games (against Rutgers and Georgetown). Its win over the Hoyas was a smackdown -- a 70-54 victory for Pitt after Georgetown had just taken out UConn on the road earlier in the week.

"I don't think it will change anything for us," Pitt coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN.com's Andy Katz on Sunday night. "We've become rivals of schools over the years, rivals of schools that weren't rivals before."

Besides Pitt, the other undefeated Division I men's teams are Wake Forest (13-0), Clemson (14-0) and Illinois State (14-0). Wake, off to its best start since the 1996-97 season, plays host to North Carolina on Sunday.

The Panthers collected 774 total points in the voting, 60 more than No. 2 Duke (12-1), which was bumped three spots in the poll. Wake Forest was fourth, followed by UConn, with the rest of the top 10 looking like Oklahoma (13-1), Texas (11-2) and UCLA (12-2) tied for seventh, Syracuse (14-1) and Georgetown (10-2).

Eleventh-ranked Clemson kicked off the second 10 after a five-spot jump, followed by Michigan State (11-2), Notre Dame (10-3), Purdue (11-3), Marquette (13-2), Arizona State (12-2), Villanova (12-2), Xavier (11-2), Minnesota (13-1) and Top 25 newcomer Butler (12-1).

No. 21 Louisville (9-3), West Virginia (11-2), Baylor (12-2), Boston College (13-2) and Tennessee (9-3) rounded out the Top 25. Gonzaga, Ohio State and Michigan dropped out of the poll.

With the Steelers playing host to San Diego in the NFL's AFC divisional playoffs on Sunday, it could take some heat off Pitt this week. The Panthers' next game is Sunday against St. John's.

"[A No. 1 ranking] doesn't mean much to me, but it will mean something to other people," Dixon said Sunday night. "It won't mean much to our players. We've been consistently good, but at the same time we haven't won a national championship, so nothing changes."