On the final day of the men's basketball signing period yesterday, Pitt missed out on one of the top remaining recruits, but still landed a consensus top-25 recruiting class.

Pitt received signed commitments from four players who will fill the void at forward and center after this year's group of seniors graduate.

The centerpiece of the class is 6-foot-9 power forward Dante Taylor, a consensus top-30 recruit from National Christian Academy in Fort Washington, Md. He is joined by 6-5 guard/forward Lamar Patterson of Lancaster, 6-7 forward J.J. Richardson from Missouri City, Texas, and 6-9 forward Talib Zanna, who is originally from Nigeria but is finishing his high school career at Bishop McNamara in Forestville, Md.

It's a consensus top-25 class according to the recruiting services that do rankings. Hoopscooponline ranks Pitt No. 9, ESPNU Pitt No. 14, PrepStars No. 23 and Scout.com No. 24.

The class would have been ranked even higher had coach Jamie Dixon landed Durand Scott. Dixon was holding out hope that Scott, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard from Rice High School in New York, would join the class, but he chose Miami over Pitt and Connecticut. Scott is one of the top shooting guards in the country.

Nonetheless, Dixon was extremely happy with the players who did sign.

"We have good kids, hard workers," Dixon said. "We have kids from winning programs. It's more of the same. We had to get size. Obviously, we did. It's a big class."

Taylor is a highly skilled post player who also has fine outside shooting ability. He is probably Pitt's best recruit in more than two decades. He chose Pitt over Kansas and Memphis, the two teams that played in the national championship game in April.

Lamar Patterson at one time was just as highly ranked as Taylor. But an ankle injury forced him to miss the AAU circuit this summer and his ranking plummeted. He is ranked No. 93 by Scout.com.

Patterson, who played his first three seasons at McCaskey High in Lancaster, is playing his senior season at St. Benedict's Prep in New Jersey under coach Dan Hurley. Richardson and Zanna are not considered top-100 players by the recruiting services, but Dixon believes they can develop into top-notch players in time.