Top 35 junior Dawson Garcia gets visits in

A top 35 prospect in the class of 2020, four-star forward Dawson Garcia has gotten an early start on his recruiting.

The skilled 6-foot-9 forward at Pryor Lake (Minn.) High already carries scholarship offers from Baylor, Butler, Marquette, Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue, Texas, Wisconsin and others. He took two officials in the fall to Baylor and Texas and also saw Marquette unofficially. Now he’s shifted his focus to his junior season.

“I feel like I’ve gotten better with my overall game,” Garcia told Rivals.com. “I’ve really added to my shooting, my dribbling, my defense and I feel like my leadership has gotten a lot better. I had to be a better leader as I stepped into this role and that’s always a good trait to have and this year my main focus is on trying to lead this team to a state berth for the first time since 1976.”

Garcia broke down his Fall visits and discussed home state Minnesota who he hopes to set up an official visit with soon.

Baylor: “It’s a super beautiful campus with great people. I love their basketball program too. They were great to me while I was there and it was fun to watch their practices. I also got to do some work with some of the players just shooting around a bit. I like their gym too. It’s a nice setiup and it looks like it can get pretty crazy in there.”

Texas: “Austin was great. It was my first official visit ever and my first experience with that. It was awesome. I got there the first day and we were kind of chilling but the next day there were a lot of activities. I saw around the whole area and the whole campus. I talked to everyone from the academic advisors to the chefs and the managers. They were all great people down the line. Me and coach (Shaka) Smart have a great relationship and he was the first one to offer me a scholarship so that means a lot to me.”

Marquette: "That was a grweat visit as well. I went before the two officials and it was good. We did a lot of talking to the academic advisor, walked around the place and I saw the new arena which was super sweet. It’s all basketball, all the focus.”

Minnesota: “I’ve been talking to coach (Kyle) Lindsted a lot, he’s a really great guy and I’ve built a great relationship with him and with coach (Richard) Pitino as well. I really like them a lot and I’m excited to continue building my relationship with them.”

Garcia is the perfect stretch four man for the college game. He’s a fluid athlete who moves well around the perimeter and he can soften defenses with his jump shooting. Though he’s still on the slender side, he’s done a nice job of adding bulk without losing flexibility and he’s a very sure handed rebounder.

The early offer from Texas seems to have made a pretty strong impact on Garcia and his relationship with Minnesota appears pretty strong as well. It’s likely a little too early to declare a leader or group of leaders and while Garcia says that he’ll take his time, he didn’t totally rule out the possibility of making an early decision.

“I’m going to be taking my time with it," said Garcia. "But you never know because if something happens and it feels like that’s where I’m supposed to be and that’s God’s plan for me I’m going to take that opportunity.”