2020 Top 30 Prospect Dawson Garcia Took An Official Visit To Marquette

Hey, remember when Marquette beat Villanova on National Marquette Day over the weekend? That was fun.

You know what else was fun? According to Evan Daniels of 247 Sports, Marquette and head coach Steve Wojciechowski had Class of 2020 top 30 prospect Dawson Garcia in for an official visit over the weekend, too. That meant that Garcia had a high quality seat for MU’s big victory over the Wildcats as well as the rest of the festivities across all of campus.

247 Sports lists Garcia as a 6’11”, 220 pound center in the Class of 2020. He hails from Prior Lake, Minnesota, a southwest suburb of the Twin Cities, where he attends the eponymous high school. Garcia ranks #28 in the country in his recruiting class according to 247’s Composite system, and we do get a little bit of a question here. He’s listed under “prospect info” as a center, but his position ranking has him as the #6 power forward in the country and the #2 prospect in the state of Minnesota..... one spot behind Marquette prospect Jalen Suggs and one spot ahead of Marquette prospect Dain Dainja. According to this article from February 10th in the Prior Lake American, Garcia is averaging 27.5 points per game this season for the Lakers.

Garcia is, of course, currently a junior in high school, and NCAA legislation passed over the summer gives juniors the ability to take official visits during their junior year as well as their senior year. Good for Garcia to take advantage of the system to get his transportation and housing paid for in order to see one of the best college basketball games in the country this season. Per that earlier linked article from Daniels, Garcia has already taken official visits to Texas and Baylor this season, and his official trip to Marquette follows up an unofficial visit to Milwaukee that he already experienced.

The Class of 2020 is a big one for Marquette, as the Golden Eagles are projected to lose four seniors after the following season, including Markus Howard and Sam Hauser. It’s unclear exactly how the roster will look by the time November 2020 rolls around, though. Let me explain by popping in the scholarship chart here before continuing.

Symir Torrence is currently committed to play for Marquette, but the timing on his start date is up in the air. Torrence will be eligible to reclassify to the Class of 2019, but for right now, is considered as a 2020 prospect for the Golden Eagles. He isn’t going to make a decision about that until after the current basketball season, so we won’t really know what Marquette is looking at for 2020 for sure until after that. In either circumstance, Marquette projects to have four scholarship spots available for other 2020 prospects like Garcia. The Golden Eagles have a lot of possibilities for those four spots, and the list just starts with the three young men from Minnesota. The top line names are Julian Strawther, a top 40 player who just included MU in his top 10, Johnny Juzang, a top 25 prospect from California, Jamari Sibley, who plays just up the street from Marquette at Nicolet High School, and Jalen Johnson, who 1) is Sibley’s teammate at Nicolet and 2) is ranked #4 in the country.

Quite obviously, there’s still a lot of moving parts to the entire recruiting scene for 2020, as none of these players can sign a letter of intent until November of 2019 at the absolute earliest. Keep your eyes and ears open to see where the winds will carry us....