I just got back from the drawing for this year’s National Championship for Field Trialing Bird Dogs at Ames Plantation.

I’ll have a full story examining all of the braces in Monday’s paper. But for now I wanted to go ahead and tell you how the first day will shape up.

Barring weather delays, BB’s Pike, owned by Bill Bruce of Hopkinsville, Ky., will run in the first brace Monday morning with South’s Late Night, owned by David G. Dickey of Augusta, Ga.

The second brace, which is scheduled for Monday afternoon, features one local dog and a former national champion.

Shell Creek Coin, the 2006 national title winner owned by David O’Connor of Flint, Tex., will run with Whippoorwill Wild Agin, owned by J.D. Huffman of Michigan City, Miss., and Terry Terlep of Boston, Ga.

That second brace is likely to draw a big gallery on horseback.

For the complete list of braces, visit the Ames Plantation web site.

Last year, the Tigers went down to Orlando, where they were lining up for a hundred yards outside UCF Arena to watch the most-anticipated game in school history. And Memphis dominated literally from the opening tip. Joey Dorsey went crazy with 22 points and 9 rebounds, and Chris Douglas-Roberts went 9-for-13 from the field and scored 23 points. The game was a total mismatch, as Memphis pretty much overwhelmed UCF athletically. The 87-65 final score did not reflect how thoroughly Memphis dominated, as UCF was able to put together some plays late against the Tigers’ walk-ons.

I think you could see the same kind of thing today. Though UCF runs their stuff well and they’ve got a couple good shooters in O’Donnell and Taylor, they just don’t have the athleticism or size to keep up with a team like Memphis. I think this will probably be another pasting , especially since Robert Dozier will probably be very motivated to have a good game at home today.

Steve Welmer is part of today’s officiating crew, along with Jamie Luckie and Don Daily. Surprised to see Welmer, who is regarded as one of the best in the business. He does a lot of big national games like Indiana-Illinois the other night, but he’s also done a lot of Memphis games over the past couple years. Having Welmer makes up for the horrendous officiating crew that got sent here last Saturday for the UTEP game.