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Recruiting: Hoosiers make final 7 list for 6-foot-11 5-star recruit Dawson Garcia

Power forward from Minnesota would fill a gaping hole up front for Indiana in its 2020 class.
Tom Brew|
Recruiting: Hoosiers make final 7 list for 6-foot-11 5-star recruit Dawson Garcia
Recruiting: Hoosiers make final 7 list for 6-foot-11 5-star recruit Dawson Garcia

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Dawson Garcia, a much-coveted 5-star power forward from Prior Lake, Minn., trimmed his list of schools to seven on Tuesday, and Indiana was on the list.

The list of remaining competitors for Garcia's service is a virtual who's who of blue bloods in college basketball. Along with the Hoosiers, North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, Memphis, Marquette and Minnesota remain in the hunt. 

Garcia is an athletic big man who would be a perfect fit in Indiana coach Archie Miller's system. He would also fill a major need, because even though IU's current 2020 recruiting class is ranked No. 4 nationally in the 247Sports composite rankings, the only commitments so far are from wing players. Size is an urgent need right now, and Garcia would fill that need.

Indiana's three commitments thus far are from 6-foot-5 guard Anthony Leal of Bloomington South, 6-4 guard Trey Galloway of Culver Academy and Jordan Geronimo, a 6-6 small forward from St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., who committed a few weeks ago. Leal and Geronimo are 4-star recruits in the 247Sports Composite rankings; Galloway is a 3-star.

Indiana has had some success in recruiting top players out of Minnesota recently. Indiana redshirt freshman Race Thompson is from Plymouth, Minn., and big things are expected from him this year as he matures. He redshirted last year after reclassifying to come to IU a year yearly, so he's still very young.

Indiana assistant coach Tom Ostrom is a University of Minnesota graduate and has been familiar with Garcia and many of the top players in the state for a while. 

Leal and Galloway have become recruiters themselves with Garcia, who they know well from the summer AAU circuit. They have been pushing him hard to visit Bloomington. He is only allowed five official visits, so two of the schools on his list will have to be trimmed soon.

Garcia averaged 27.5 points and 11 rebounds last year and his team went 25-4.  He missed a lot of the summer with an illness, but is 100 percent now. He has said he plans to sign during the November early signing period. 

Follow Tom Brew on Twitter @tombrewsports.

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Tom Brew
TOM BREW

Tom Brew has been the publisher of “Indiana Hoosiers on SI’’ since 2019. He has worked at some of America's finest newspapers as an award-winning reporter and editor for more than four decades, including the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He operates seven sites on the “On SI’’ network. Follow Tom on Twitter @tombrewsports.

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