A - Artest, Ron. The Lakers' bad boy will miss some action thanks to a concussion and an injured elbow. The alleged cause of these injuries is unbelievable and almost certainly false. Artest reportedly tripped over a box in his house and fell down a flight of stairs. I don't understand why athletes and their agents always come up with such ridiculous stories to cover up the true, embarrassing causes of injuries. We'll likely never know what actually caused the injuries, but I'm very confident we know what didn't.
 
B - Butler. This was supposed to be a dream season for the Bulldogs - one in which they established themselves as the king of the mid-majors and a potential Final Four contender. That may still happen, but they aren't making it easy for themselves. They lost yet again this week - by 10 at UAB - to fall to 8-4 on the season. They'll have an easier go of things in Horizon League play, but right now this is a team with far too many vulnerabilities and issues to be taken seriously.

C - Carolina. Where did that come from? The Panthers are out of the playoffs, and Matt Moore is starting down the stretch. That seems like a recipe for underachievement. Not on Sunday, though - the Panthers absolutely crushed the life out of the Giants in New York. It was 24-0 at the half, and 41-9 at the final whistle. The Giants didn't look at any point in the game like they were interested in playing. It was the last game the Giants will play in Giants stadium. The old building deserved more as a sendoff.

D - Defamation. Pacquiao-Mayweather has the potential to be the best fight any of us has ever seen, but not if the fighters and their management can't get their act together and make the fight happen. Drug testing has been the sticking point - the Mayweather camp thinks Pacquiao uses performance enhancers, so they want Olympic style drug testing, but Pacquiao doesn't want to give blood close to the fight. It's gotten so bad that Pacquiao is threatening to sue Mayweather for defamation.

E - Emerald Bowl. It just didn't seem right to see USC play a bowl game in December, never mind one as meaningless as the Emerald Bowl. It was hard to know how the Trojans would play given the disappointment of the season, and the absence of Joe McKnight because of possible NCAA violations. As it turned out they were just fine. Matt Barkley played his best game in a couple of months, and the Trojans cruised to a reasonably easy win over Boston College.

F - Florida. The Gators jumped out to a quick 8-0 start, and it looked for a while like the hoops team was going to recapture some of the glory that saw them win two championships in a row. But then the wheels feel off, and the team has lost three in a row - each worse than the one before it. The latest embarrassment came this week when the Gators lost at home to South Alabama. Florida was favored by 19, so they obviously had no business losing this one.

G - Gators. Urban Meyer shocked the sports world on Saturday when he announced that he was resigning as the head coach of the Gators after the Sugar Bowl to focus on his health and his family. Before people could get their head around this news, though, he reportedly changed his mind. Now it seems as if he will actually just take an indefinite leave of absence, and the team's offensive coordinator will fill in in his absence. You really have to wonder why Meyer would announce his retirement if he clearly wasn't committed to it. And what is it about Florida coaches making announcements then reversing them the next day? First Billy Donovan, now Meyer.

H - Houston. The Texans got a much needed win at Miami to keep their playoff hopes alive, but it sure wasn't pretty. They looked as good as a team can look in the first 25 minutes as they jumped out to a 27-0 lead. But then they took the rest of the game off. Miami wasn't great, but they still managed to close the gap to 27-20, and almost tied it up late. The Texans may find their way to the playoffs this year, but they still are a long way away from competent in so many ways.

I - Indianapolis. So much for the undefeated season. The Colts' coaching staff obviously cared little about winning every game this year, because they pulled Peyton Manning and the rest of the starters when the team was up 15-10 on the Jets. That was the last points they scored, and the Jets looked like a different team against Indy's second stringers en route to a 29-15 win. Given that the Colts could have won the game with reasonable ease if the starters had stayed in I wouldn't blame Colts' fans at all if they were a bit upset about this one.

J - Jerryd Bayless. It took two years for Bayless to get his first NBA start, but he certainly made the most of the opportunity once he got it. Bayless was brilliant in San Antonio on Friday, scoring 31 points and adding seven assists as he helped his team overcome the absence of Brandon Roy to beat the Spurs. It's almost as if Roy didn't want Bayless to get any ideas about earning a permanent starting spot, though - he returned the next game to score 41 to beat the Nuggets.

K - King LeBron. Cleveland and the Lakers played a highly anticipated Christmas day game, but in the end it wasn't much of a contest. The Lakers were incomprehensibly flat despite being at home where they are all but unbeatable, and the Cavs rolled to an easy 15-point win. The game got really strange late when the frustrated Lakers fan responded to their team getting consistently outworked in the physical contest by throwing dozens of foam fingers, and even a water bottle or two, onto the court.

L - Longhorns. It is getting harder and harder to view Texas as anything other than a team with a very legitimate shot at cutting down the nets in Indianapolis in early April. Just a few days after beating North Carolina, the Longhorns soundly handled Michigan State at home. Damion James led the way for the Longhorns in both contests, netting 23 points and 13 rebounds against the Spartans to go with the 25 and 25 he had against the Heels.

M - Michael Schumacher. Apparently retirement means about as much in Formula One as it does in boxing. The 40-year-old superstar has been out of the driver's seat since 2006, but he is returning next season to drive for Mercedes. He has signed a one-year deal worth at least $10 million, and it remains to be seen if he can be competitive against guys like Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, the driver who now occupies Schumacher's old Ferrari.

N - North Carolina. Butch Davis has the Tar Heels moving in the right direction. On Saturday he led them in a bowl game that was more personal than most. Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt is the godfather of Davis' oldest child, so the coaches obviously know each other well. In the case of the Meineke Car Car Bowl, that familiarity led to a very entertaining game. Pitt came out on top in the 19-17 game thanks to a last minute field goal. It was the 10th win for Pitt - the most since Dan Marino was under center.

O - Oakland. The Raiders are a strange team. Last week they went into Denver, looked almost good, and beat the Broncos. This week they went into Cleveland, looked hopeless, and lost to the lowly Browns. The lone highlight for the Raiders was a 61-yard field goal, but even that only happened because the team couldn't move the ball when it mattered. Charlie Frye had 333 passing yards for the Raiders, but three interceptions dulled the impact of that significantly. Jerome Harrison showed that he was no one hit wonder for the Browns by rushing for 148 more yards and a touchdown this week.

P - Packers. The Packers will be heading to the playoffs, and that playoff spot was essentially handed to them on a silver platter. Instead of traveling to Green Bay to play another meaningless game it appeared that the Seahawks chose to extend their Christmas vacation. Seattle did absolutely nothing, and the Packers rolled to a laughable 48-10 win. The game was such a farce that Aaron Rodgers only needed to throw for 237 yards and a touchdown to score 48 points. Terrible, terrible performance by the struggling 'Hawks.

Q - Quite lopsided. Sunday's early NFL games did not provide for a whole lot of excitement or close battles. There were a few exciting games, but there were also four of the nine contests that were decided by at least 28 points - New England and Atlanta won by 28, Carolina won by 32, and the Packers prevailed by 38. If the last couple of weeks of the season are dependable for one thing it's that they provide some stunningly uncompetitive football, and this year is no exception.

R -Randy Moss. Moss emphatically answered his critics that said he wasn't trying anymore. Moss had just four catches against the Jaguars, but all of them were impressive, and three of them wound up in the endzone. Moss added the points, and Wes Welker did the rest of the damage - 13 catches for 138 yards - as Tom Brady and the Pats cruised to a very easy 35-7 win that officially clinched them their inevitable AFC East title.

S - SMU. Southern Methodist hadn't been in a bowl game since 1984, and had suffered a death penalty since then, so it seemed like they would have been happy just to be in the Hawaii Bowl against a Nevada team that, on paper, was clearly the superior team. Apparently not. Freshman QB Kyle Padron threw for a SMU record 460 yards as the Mustangs piled on the Wolf Pack for an incredibly impressive 45-10 win. SMU coach June Jones won in his first game back in Aloha Stadium since making Hawaii such an impressive team in his nine years at the helm.

T - Tampa Bay. The Bucs have had a very rough season, but it is clear that they aren't giving up yet. They fell behind 17-0 to New Orleans, but stormed back to tie it up late in the fourth quarter thanks to a 77-yard punt return, then shocked the Saints in overtime with a field goal to win. The game had little meaning for the Saints, but it's still a very bad sign for a team that has lost two in a row after 13 straight wins, and which hasn't looked particularly good for at least a month.

U - Utah. True freshman QB Jordan Wynn looked great as he led his team to an impressive win over Cal in the Poinsettia Bowl. Wynn had 338 yards passing and three touchdowns as Utah won by 10 in a game that wasn't as close as it seemed since Cal scored the last TD. Utah's win continued the dominance of the Mountain West both in the bowl season (3-0 so far) and against the Pac-10 (two dominating bowl wins). The early strength of the conference is a good omen for TCU in the BCS.

V - Vince Young. Young has been a very good story this year, but he wasn't much to watch on Christmas day. The Titans were eliminated from playoff contention as Young completed just 38 percent of his passes and threw two interceptions without a TD. Philip Rivers was ruthlessly efficient, and LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles each found the endzone twice as the Chargers clinched the second spot in the AFC and a first-round playoff bye.

W - We Are Marshall! Marshall had a rough season this year - they finished 6-6, and their head coach quit after the regular season. It would have seemed reasonable to expect, then, that they would have been in tough in the Little Caesars Bowl against an Ohio team that was looking for their 10th win. Not so much. Interim coach and all, Marshall won the game. Leading the way was freshman running back Martin Ward who scored two TDs to secure the game MVP title. Beyond the result, the game was noteworthy because line judge Sarah Thomas became the first woman ever to officiate a bowl game.

X - Xavier. The mascots of our column had just one game last week, but they got the right result. They got a win, albeit a pretty uninspiring one, at home against Miami of Ohio on Wednesday. The win moves them to 7-4, and puts them in decent shape heading into conference play. Before A-10 action starts, though, they face a couple of big tests - at home against LSU on Tuesday, and then at Wake Forest on January 3.

Y - Young, Brigham. Oregon State was riding a five-bowl winning streak, but they were no match for a BYU team making their fifth straight Las Vegas Bowl appearance. Max Hall finished his BYU career with a bang, throwing for three TDs to lead his squad to a dominating 44-20 win. It's not a loss that the Beavers will forget - it's their first in six tries under head coach Mike Riley, and it's the most points Oregon State has ever given up in a bowl game.

Z - Zzzz. Miami and Utah may have played the most boring NBA game in history this week. The Heat had the lead at the half, but it was just 32-30 - an impossibly low total. Both teams play pretty solid defense, but this game was more about offensive incompetence than defensive prowess. Miami ended up winning by 10 despite scoring just 80 points, and the squads combined to shoot just 58 of 158 - a dismal 36.7 percent. Pathetic.