E.J. Farris is a walk-on, with his place supposedly at the end of the bench.

But he's nothing, if not confident in himself. Farris has played well in recent practices, shot well, ran the scout team well. So, he earned a shot in the heat of a real game. That shot came on Saturday night against Northeastern. Farris played five minutes, hit a three-pointer, a few free-throws and went error free. His five points may not mean much on the stat sheet, but it was huge for a team that couldn't make a shot against the Huskies.

"Right now, E.J. believes that he can make shots, and we need as much of that as we can get," Utah State coach Stew Morrill said. "He's earned the right to play. He's really been playing hard in practice and we wanted to get him into a game and see how he responded."

James Walker, the freshman point guard, didn't play because Farris did. It remains to be determined if Farris has done enough to earn the back-up role for Wednesday's game at Denver. But coaches love players who are ready when called upon, and Farris proved his worth on Saturday night.

Tony Jones