Richie I figured would give us his glue-guy role for close to 20 min per. But he's clearly gonna be a key scorer as well. There'll be nights it'll be hard for KY to take him off the court.

Fouss will split time with Keba. That won't change throughout the season, & some nights he might actually give us 30+ minutes in regulation play. I was thinking he'd be more at the end of the rotation as a scoring specialist — given Keba's clear athletic & size advantages. But Fouss's passing has been just so SOLID. And he's clearly playing more decisively as a scorer in the paint than he did last season (with a few notable exception performances). He was quick to give Burgess a shout-out in his post-game interview, & I have no doubt that's probably a key cause of his rejuvenated play.

Catchings has more immediate-impact value than I thought he would coming in. Clearly he had high-end talent coming in, but I assumed his youth would put him behind the 8-ball more than a bit. In reality — his speed & defense isn't just a lot better than I figured — it's a key component to our team's ceiling. His ability to be a lead shooter & scorer for us is also better than I figured it'd be. I kinda expect him to fulfill that role for us by conference play.

Yes, there are others — & Egor's quite a bit better than I thought he'd be. But those are the three I felt I needed to set the record straight on.