"For the season, Justin Thompson leads the KU men with a 203.625 average and is followed by Kyle Turner (203.245), Matt Washford (202.274), Alex Hardman (200.929) and Nick Campfield (196.077).

Kara Johannes leads the KU women with a 183.867 average and is followed by Loryn Goebel (168.714), Katie Constant (155.077), Michelle Schieffer (153.083) and Laura Konecny (145.6)."

These can't seriously be their average, unless college bowlers just really suck. I have been bowling 5 times in the last 16 years and average around 228. I'm intrested to know what the #1 ranked team averages.

It's slightly different for the kids - they're not bowling on house shots.

For the men listed above, those are pretty solid averages given the difficulty of some of the patterns they face.

For the women, Kara's average is solid. The rest are not at a level we would hope to see, but they're improving.

I have never watched College Bowling, only Pro and what we do and public bowling allys, so I didn't realize it's different in college. What exactly are the different patterns they use in college?

I agree. My nephew is approaching these averages. and he is a freshman in high school

The difference between collegiate bowling and what you see when you open bowl or what the high school kids bowl on is the lane pattern. Most bowling centers will use a house shot that will have a ratio of oil in the middle of the lanes that is 7 to 10 times the volume on the outside. This means if you can generate some projection to the outside of the lane with some side rotation the ball will eventually build up friction and you will hook back towards the pocket.

On the sport shots that the collegiate players see, the ratio can't exceed 3:1 and can be as low as 1.5/1. What that means is you don't get the forgiveness that you do on the house shots. You are rewarded for replicating your shot, the same speed, release and launch angle. You also need to understand your equipment and make correct choice as far as ball surface and drilling pattern. As a rule the scores on sport shots are much lower than a house shot. The best analogy I can give you from another sport would be hitting off the back tees in golf.

If you have never seen any collegiate events, here is a link to the final game of the 2004 Intercollegiate Team Championships between KU and Saginaw Valley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE5Fl_nUUGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUhFrS1SmbM

I don't want to ruin anything, but it does have a happy ending.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What Coach said.