The first time Ray Smith went to dunk it wasn't, um, a dunk. Or at least didn't feel like a slam he's been used to.

“It felt like a struggle,” he said on Thursday at Arizona's media day in talking about his attempted return to the basketball court after his second ACL tear in a couple of years.

But that seems so long ago, yet not so much. It was almost a year ago Smith suffered his second injury that has kept him off the court. But he's ready for his return, which will officially – likely – begin this weekend when he's expected to get full clearance to begin practice with the other Wildcats.

“I tackled the process so much and I have done things so hard that me being on the court is not even the scariest thing,” he said. “It's not one bit scary.”

The mind has taken over and now is not the time to overthink things. He knows what he's capable of. He's studied long and hard about his injuries, knowing everything there is to know about the two.

“It's actually really strange,” he said about his injury. “There are a lot of mental problems with ACL tears that people don't trust their leg and what they tend to do is baby it, and they'll hurt themselves.”