To a sports-crazed town in a society obsessed by rankings, it's a figure made in heaven.

No. 1.

It's where the Steelers stood after Super Bowl XL in February 2006. It's the perch the Penguins claimed with their last Stanley Cup in 1992. It's the finger the Pirates Fam-a-lee wagged after the 1979 World Series. And it's the ranking the Pitt Panthers -- the Pitt football Panthers -- seized with their Sugar Bowl win in January 1977.

But never has the University of Pittsburgh men's basketball team sat atop, the very top, of the national rankings. Until now.

With timely upsets last week of previously No. 1 North Carolina and ertswhile No. 2 Connecticut at the hands of other teams, the formerly No. 3 Panthers vaulted yesterday to the top tier of both the Associated Press and the ESPN/USA Today polls.

It's an incredible view -- above the menacing peaks of the Dukes, the UCLAs and the Notre Dames -- and a scary one, too, given all the basketball yet to be played.

Besides congratulations to Coach Jamie Dixon and his team, we would offer this simple advice: Be yourself. It worked for Pittsburgh, the nation's most livable metro area in 1986 and again in the most recent Places Rated Almanac.

Another No. 1 team in America's No. 1 place to live? It almost comes as no surprise.