Martell Webster was the quiet hero tonight

A wave of season-ending injuries hit both sides of the ball for USM and dampened a promising season after a 3-0 start and a victory over Virginia. Very quietly, Southern Miss has built a consistent program, having reached a bowl game in 12 of the last 13 seasons. PTESPNThey changed the sponsor but they don't have the title right yet. This game has become the BYU Invitational as the Cougars will play in Sin City for the fifth straight year.

This year's foe: Oregon State, which had its Rose Bowl hopes dashed by the dreaded Ducks. The Beavers can't hang their heads because this is the only matchup of Top 25 teams before Christmas Come prepared, or Max Hall will have a field day. If you're going to plan to see one of the early bowl games, this is your matchup. Watch for OSU's Rodgers brothers, first-team all-Pac-10 Quarterback Sean Canfield plus BYU's Hall and Harvey Unga.Pick: BYU (it would be OSU coach Mike Riley's first loss in a bowl game at OSU, but I have a hard time seeing the Beavers get up enough to handle a quality foe like BYU given the Rose Bowl letdown)Rating: Grab a bowl of Chex Mix. PTESPNThese two teams played Oregon at Autzen in back-to-back weeks, with the Ducks posting a 31-24 win over the Utes and drubbing Cal 42-3 in one of the worst losses ever for a team ranked in the top ten.

When Cal lost, it lost in spectacularly ugly fashion, margins of 39, 27, 17 and 32 points. Utah has won eight straight bowl games including last year's blow out of Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and has 58 wins in the last six seasons.Pick: UtahRating: Worth a handful of Chex Mix Sheraton Hawaii BowlNevada vs SMUDec 24 5 p.m. PTESPNFormer Hawaii coach June Jones returns to Aloha Stadium with an SMU club that he has rapidly turned around The Mustangs won just two games in 2007 and 2008combined. This is SMU's first bowl game since NCAA sanctions shut down the program in the 1980s but it's far from a finished product in Dallas as the Mustangs had rather inexplicable losses to Washington State and Marshall. Colin Kaepernick threw for 1,700 yards and ran for another 1,000 with Luke Lipincott and Vai Taua both rushing for more than 1,000 yards as well.Pick: NevadaRating: It's Christmas Eve.

Just a pretzel. Disclaimer: I've got no relationship with General Mills or Chex Mix I'm just having fun here. Todd Lickliter didn't appear to enjoy his first press conference back after his surgical procedure.It might have had something to do with the first few questions he fielded.One reporter asked , "There was a posting on a message board yesterday that a few of your current players were contemplating transferring. 19 in the nation and appear to be headed to the NCAA tournament.Note: typing those last two sentences was like pouring acid on my eyelids.With the Hawkeyes off to one of the worst starts in school history this year, the transfer rumors were inevitable. They showed up a little earlier than expected, though.Forum threads began to surface Tuesday on two of the major fan sites, Hawkeye Nation and Hawkeye Lounge, about the rumors floating around. The rumors involved as many as threeHawkeye players (Tucker, Fuller, and Brommer)transferring, with the possibility of those coming at semester's end.Is there any truth to the current rumors As of now, the rumors are just that: rumors. Transfers happen at every school, especially after a coaching change. Add in a few losing seasons, and transfer talk really heats up.Regardless of the rumors, Hawkeyes fans need to show the team and the coach support. Fans need to show this young team that Iowa is worth fighting for and sticking with.Should the rumors prove true, then some tough questions will need to be addressed. Are players transfering as the result of legitimate life issues or are they the result of the Lickliter program Follow iowahawkeyes and BRCollegeBBall on Twitter for more Iowa Hawkeye Basketball updates.. BOX SCOREJerryd Bayless believers, this one is for you.Bayless made the most of his opportunities tonight with a career game: 29 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds in 29 minutes. He provided much needed scoring and aggressiveness throughout the game and stepped up even more when the score was tight down the stretch. He scored going to the rim, he scored at the free-throw line, he scored off pull-up midrange jumpers, he scored off spot-up threes. I say "seemed" only because my fiancee could not help but exclaim about the size of his forehead during the entire interview to the point where I didn't hear a single thing he said.Martell Webster was the quiet hero tonight.