It’s been unofficial for over a week since the early signing period began, but Pitt made the press release official yesterday.

Those five student-athletes include power forward DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh, Pa./Schenley H.S.), center Cassin Diggs (Williamsport, Pa./Cloud County C.C.), small forward Darnell Dodson (Greenbelt, Md./Eleanor Roosevelt H.S.), center Gary McGhee (Anderson, Ind./Highland Senior H.S.) and guard Bradley Wanamaker (Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic H.S.). The NCAA Division I fall signing period ran from Wednesday, Nov. 8 to Wednesday, Nov. 15.

The class, comprising four top-150 recruits and one top-25 junior college player, has been ranked No. 4 nationally by Hoopscoop.com and No. 17 nationally by Collegehoops.net. In August, 2007, Blair, Dodson, McGhee and Wanamaker will enroll as freshmen while Diggs will enroll as a junior.

The press release has short bios on each of them.

Hoopscoop.com has its rankings on subscription basis. I don’t see where the CollegeHoops.net has the 2006-07 rankings.

Coach Dixon downplayed the whole ranking thing — at least publicly.

The highest-rated player is Blair, the Schenley High School star who is No. 46 according to Scout.com. The only other consensus top 100 recruit is Wanamaker, from Roman Catholic High in Philadelphia. He is No. 91 player according to Scout. Diggs, from Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kans., is rated a top-25 junior-college player.

“I care little about [the rankings],” Dixon said. “Our guys always seem to be ranked higher after [their senior] season. No one was recruiting Sam [Young] when we were. Then, he had a good senior year, and everyone was ranking him.

“There are different things you look at. You have to look at character, grades, if they come from winning programs, all those different things. I’m excited about them. They’re great kids, good people. They had good coaches. I like all five of them.”

Well sort of downplaying it.

“We’ve never had a class ranked this high,” Dixon said. “If they are ever right, I hope this is the year.”

The Panthers are traditionally down the list when the annual recruiting class rankings are released. In the past five years, for instance, Pitt has finished 152nd, 23rd, 51st, 34th and 130th in the national HoopScoop rankings.

Even the Class of 2005, which included Tyrell Biggs, Levance Fields and Sam Young, was ranked 23rd, one spot behind Middle Tennessee State.

This year, Pitt is 11th in the rankings. Two other scouting services also have Pitt among the top-20 recruiting classes in the nation.

“By far, this will be our best class,” Dixon said. “These are great kids who were heavily recruited. Everybody wanted them, and we wanted them.”

While on the subject of recruiting, a good piece on Jeannette’s Terrelle Pryor and his growing options.

Terrelle Pryor was talking to a guidance counselor at Jeannette High School recently when Pryor told him what happened the previous day.

“He told me he got a scholarship offer from the University of Nebraska for football — and the University of Connecticut for basketball,” said Rick Klimchock. “I told him I’ve had some good days in my life, but I don’t know if I ever had a day like that.”

But such days are becoming common for Pryor.

He still envisions playing both sports, but few really believe he will be able to do both at a high level. Eventually he will have to choose.

So, um, does anyone mind if I just talk about some basketball for a little. The whole second half from last night’s Backyard Brawl really is not something I’m prepared to discuss quite yet.

There is a tournament that started a couple hours ago. UMass and Northeastern are playing right now and Pitt takes on Oakland at 5 pm tonight. There are two expected easy games for Pitt and two reasonable challenges.

“This was a great opportunity for us,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “When they came at us with UMass and Florida State … Who else is getting two games like that? The quality of teams in this tournament compared to other tournaments is pretty good.”

Dixon likes to play host to tournaments because they are exempt and have the advantage of keeping players in school and on campus.

As much as anything else, this is a very early rev-up for playing games on successive days.

“Three games in three days,” senior center Aaron Gray said. “This should be a pretty good test for us.”

The event will help prepare the Panthers for the rigors of the Big East Tournament, where it takes three-games-in-three days — at least — to win it all.

“Everything we’re doing,” Gray said, “is to get prepared for March.”

The UMass game tomorrow also adds the intrigue of Dante Milligan, a one-time Pitt player who transferred when he realized how much talent was ahead of him and his chances of getting playing time early weren’t there.