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Morning Rumble: Ray Smith tears his ACL, Mitch Lightfoot to Kansas over St. John's

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Today in the Morning Rumble, Ray Smith is done for the season, Mitch Lightfoot to Kansas and Rick Pitino won't attend ACC Media Day.

Rough news for the Arizona Wildcats as freshman forward Ray Smith has torn his right ACL and is likely to miss the entire 2015-16 season. Smith tore his other ACL during his senior season of high school and the four-star Las Vegas native was expected to contribute key minutes off the bench.

Smith is a terrific on-ball defender, runs the floor well, cleans up the glass and slashes at a high level offensively.

St. John's target Mitch Lightfoot grew up as a Kansas Jayhawks fan and committed to Bill Self's program on Saturday evening over the Johnnies, Utah, Stanford and Arizona. Lightfoot is a four-star power forward and a native of Tucson, Arizona. He is ranked 99th on ESPN's top 100 recruiting list for the class of 2016.

This is interesting piece on Cox Hub that talks about recruiting within the Big East (Providence in particular) and how it may not be worth it to go after the big boys when they may be dead set on joining a blue blood program like Kentucky or Duke.

Ultimately, the best way to build a program is to make an effort to land some of the top recruits especially if they live in the area near your program (like Kris Dunn). There is also a developing aspect where programs don't need to land five-star recruits every year to have success (like Bo Ryan and Tom Izzo).

Mateen Cleaves is the subject of a sexual assault investigation but he has not been charged yet.

Cleaves was the hero behind the 2000 Michigan State national championship and now works with CBS as a college basketball analyst.

Georgetown has solid depth in their front court, led by Isaac Copeland, Marcus Derrickson, Paul White and Jessie Govan, but the Hoyas will be down one forward for the remainder of the season. Akoy Agau, a transfer from Louisville, tore his ACL this offseason and has been ruled out indefinitely. Agau only played 3.7 minutes per game and did not average a single point in his freshman year with the Cardinals.

Rick Pitino decided late last week that he would not attend ACC Media Day in light of the latest allegations but he will send Damian Lee and Trey Lewis, two graduate transfers who will be flushed with questions that have nothing to do with the allegations.

It's very surprising that Rick Pitino, who has been talking about the allegations at press conferences and to multiple media outlets, would put all the pressure on his players rather than attending and saying "no comment" over and over.