First the women's team and then the men's team won Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular-season basketball titles with victories over teams from UW-River Falls.

In the joint celebration that followed the doubleheader at Williams Center, the Warhawks split up to cut down the nets, the women on one end of the floor, the men on the other.

After they had snipped the last piece of nylon, the players from both teams huddled at center court, put their hands together and reveled in their success. A few minutes later, they posed -- together -- for a championship photo.

Such a display of unity couldn't happen at many schools. It was no surprise, however, that it happened at Whitewater.

You see, nobody at any level in college athletics is doing it any better than Whitewater is right now.

Warhawks teams are riding an unprecedented wave of success in recent years. Particularly in the higher-profile sports, they are earning conference titles and contending for NCAA Division III championships on a regular basis.

In basketball, coach Pat Miller's men won the outright WIAC title and coach Keri Carollo's women shared the title with UW-Eau Claire. Heading into the postseason, the men (21-4) are ranked seventh and the women (23-2) are ranked fourth in the D3hoops.com poll. Both teams reached No. 2 earlier in the season.

But Whitewater isn't just a basketball school. Far from it, in fact.

In December, the Warhawks won the school's first Division III national championship in football, upsetting powerful Mount Union after losing to the Raiders in the title game the previous two years. Over the past three seasons, Whitewater has compiled a 42-3 record and is undefeated in WIAC games.

Also last fall, the Whitewater women's volleyball team reached the national final, where it lost in five games to Washington University (St. Louis). The Warhawks won the NCAA title in 2002 and '05, finished second in '00 and '01 and have won six of the eight WIAC titles in this decade.

The dominance extends to the spring as well. Prior to last year, Whitewater 's baseball team had won four consecutive WIAC titles. The highlight came in 2005 when the Warhawks won their first NCAA baseball title.

With success comes pressure, however, and starting this week the heat is on Whitewater's basketball teams to match the postseason success of the football, volleyball and baseball teams.

The men won two NCAA titles in the 1980s, the last one in 1989 when Miller was a sharp-shooting guard. However, the Warhawks have been shut out for national honors since then despite remaining a perennial contender. They have won or shared three WIAC titles in Miller's seven seasons.

Until this season, the Whitewater women had done almost nothing for two decades. However, Carollo's rebuilding project reached the summit in this, her sixth season, with the school's first league title in 22 years.

Saturday's hoops celebration was symbolic of where the Warhawks are athletically these days. Indeed, Whitewater's across-the-board success has it sitting on top of the Division III world.