Khem Birch announced on Monday that he would transfer to UNLV for the second semester of his freshman season, after playing the first 10 games of his college career in a Pittsburgh uniform.

The pickup is the latest major score for a UNLV program that is seeing a revitalization of sorts under first-year head coach Dave Rice.

Rice already delivered a widely-celebrated class during November’s early signing period including DaQuan Cook (Baltimore, Md./Digital Harbor), Demetris Morant (Las Vegas/Bishop Gorman) and ESPNU 100 guard Katin Reinhardt (San Juan Capistrano, Calif./Mater Dei). And Birch essentially becomes the fourth member of the 2012 class (although our class rankings won't reflect it).

Birch will become eligible during next season’s semester break and have three and a half years of eligibility remaining at that point.

To put Birch’s commitment in perspective, it’s consequently only appropriate to consider him as if he were a member of the Class of 2012 -- which he in fact was a little more than a year ago.

Birch began his senior season at Notre Dame Prep initially intent to do a post-graduate year and had been listed in the Class of 2012 since first arriving in the United States from his Canadian home two years ago.

It was in November of 2010, that Birch “declassified” or announced his intention to rejoin the Class of 2011 by signing a with the University of Pittsburgh. At the time, Birch was the second ranked player in the ESPNU 60, behind only Andre Drummond (now with UConn).

But Drummond would go on to leave a year ahead of schedule as well, meaning that Birch was ranked ahead of every player currently listed in the national class of 2012.

Would Birch have earned the top ranking had he never declassified? Ultimately, that would have depended on how he performed throughout the spring and summer grassroots season. He certainly would have had a good chance though, and it’s hard to imagine him falling outside the top three.

Because of his transfer status, Birch’s commitment won’t figure into our class rankings, but for all practical purposes UNLV has taken its already good class and essentially added a top-three national prospect in the country.

Plus, the Rebels may not be done either, as the nation’s top-ranked prospect Shabazz Muhammad (Las Vegas/Bishop Gorman) and the next best available prospect in the country, Anthony Bennett (Brampton, Ontario/Findlay College Prep), both have UNLV on their short lists.