Indiana Basketball: What’s next for Hoosiers after missing on Dawson Garcia?

The Indiana basketball program missed out on its top remaining target in the 2020 class, so where does the Hoosiers’ attention go to now?

On the last day of the early signing period, the Indiana basketball program was hoping to receive great news from its prized target in Dawson Garcia, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The Hoosiers now sit at three signees in the 2020 class, but what’s next for Archie Miller and co?

Anthony Leal, Trey Galloway, and Jordan Geronimo all signed with the Hoosiers during the early signing period, and that leaves one scholarship available for Indiana, barring any unforeseen departures after this season.

As Archie Miller has learned, depth is something you can’t have enough of when playing in the Big Ten. While he didn’t have enough of it last season and it hurt the Hoosiers once conference play hit, that is not an issue for this season, and expectations are high, especially after the first couple of weeks of the season.

So, now after Dawson Garcia chose the Marquette Golden Eagles over the Hoosiers, amongst others, Indiana will probably take its foot off of the gas pedal for the 2020 class until the spring.

Take a look at what the Hoosiers have done in each of the last two classes. For the 2018 class, Miller waited until the spring to secure another commitment, and it was the prized recruit in the Hoosiers’ class, as well as one of the best players in the entire country in Romeo Langford. Last year, Miller had just two commitments in the class with three available scholarships and waited until the spring once again and this time, swooped in and secured a commitment from a grad transfer in Joey Brunk. Langford led the team in scoring in 2018, and Brunk is now the starting center thus far this season, so you can say that both commitments ended up being two extremely valuable ones.

While there will still be a handful of big name targets in the class come the spring, I think it will be more of the grad route that Miller turns to. Freshmen are becoming more and more talented and able to carry a lot of the load once they step foot on campus, but it’s the upperclassmen that will win you big games more often than not.

The Hoosiers currently hold the No. 23 recruiting class in 2020, but as Miller said on Monday at his radio show, they ‘are not done yet’ when it comes to adding pieces to the class, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see Indiana secure a commitment from someone in the spring.