Dear Diary: Greetings from Wichita!

WICHITA, Kan. — Greetings from the 2008 USBC bowling championships, which will begin here Thursday morning.

Over the next several days, you can follow the goings on and the success of our Pikeville College bowling teams right here, in postings, press releases and what you’re reading now, our “Dear Diary” entries.

Long before things like this became known as blogs, we began writing these column-type things from trips to things such as the national tournaments for which we qualify. The last time we did one was in December when we accompanied the Lady Bears on a cruise of the Bahamas.

Today is a day of rest, so to speak, for our party. We left Pikeville at 3:10 on Monday and drove to west Illinois. On Tuesday the teams practiced near St. Louis, ate lunch and headed west to Wichita.

We arrived here last night and have spent today sort of relaxing.

I throw in the “sort of” because it’s not like there are no responsibilities. We made our trip out to Northrock, the bowling center hosting the tournaments. The teams checked in their equipment and left it in the paddock. We then had lunch at the center, enjoying the fantastic pizza made there.

On the way back to the hotel, we dropped off the bowlers at a nearby mall for a little shopping. They’re back here now getting ready for tonight’s events.

At 6 p.m. the coaches’ meeting will be held, followed by a reception and the 7 p.m. Night of Champions banquet, where both the coaches and media will release its All-American squads. They’ll also name coaches and players of the year, as well as rookies of the year.

Bowling begins in the morning, where the teams will bowl 32 Baker games. After those are completed at around 8 p.m. central time, scores will be added up and the teams will be ranked 1-16 for the double-elimination tournament.

Each grouping will be split into two groups — essentially, you bowl against the teams in your side of the bracket — until one team stands on each side. Those are best-of-seven games, but once we reach the finals, it’s one round, best-of-three.

Basically, it means this — once you reach the finals, the double-elimination portion is over. Doesn’t matter if one team has a loss and the other doesn’t. That part is behind us.

But that’s for another posting.

We’ll be back tonight with the results from the Night of Champions to tell you about any hardware that may be coming back to Pikeville.