The Panthers (14-0) took advantage of losses by season-long unanimous No. 1 North Carolina and No. 2 Connecticut to make the jump from third to first Monday, receiving all but two of the first-place votes from the national media panel.

Pitt had been ranked second nine times since 1987-88 but had never reached No. 1 until this week.

"I think it means a lot to our fans and our city and it means a lot to our university, much more so than to me and our players," Panthers coach Jamie Dixon said Monday. "But it is part of the reason why we play and work so hard so I am glad for them."

The Panthers have a lot of familiar names in the Top 25 with them as they are one of a record nine Big East teams in the poll.

The 16-team league had a record eight schools ranked for three weeks earlier in the season, but the return of Marquette and the first appearance of West Virginia made it nine Big East teams.

"I know I said a couple of times when people mentioned that we didn't play any ranked teams on our nonconference schedule that it's hard to schedule any when a third and now more than a third are in our conference," Dixon said, laughing. "I think it's a good thing. People talk about how hard it is but we knew it was that way when we were signing up for it. You want to play against the best and we'll have that opportunity a lot."

The Panthers opened Big East play this week with road wins over Rutgers and Georgetown. They won't play again until hosting St. John's on Sunday and Dixon doesn't think all that time with a No. 1 ranking will affect his players.

"We've talked about different things from the beginning of the year and how you can either use things as motivation or let them become a distraction and this is one of those situations that's come up," Dixon said. "We need to use this to make us better and it starts today at practice."

Duke (12-1) jumped from fifth to second to start a run of three straight teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

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