RUSTON – Louisiana Tech bowling will begin its quest for a Conference USA Championship on Wednesday at 1 p.m. as the No. 5-seed Bulldogs take on No. 8-seed Sam Houston in round one of the CUSA Tournament at Colonial Lanes in Harahan, La. The event will be streamed on ESPN+.
 
The Bulldogs finished the regular season with a 72-32 record, which includes 39 wins over ranked opponents. LA Tech earned six top-five finishes, highlighted by a second-place finish in the Track Kat Klash in early November.
 
LA Tech holds a 3-1 record against Sam Houston this season.
 
The full first round will feature six matches. Match two will pair No. 5 seed LA Tech against No. 8 seed Sam Houston, No. 9 Sacred Heart will face No. 4 Nebraska in match three, No. 3 Arkansas State will face No. 10 Wright State in match four, No. 6 Wichita State will face No. 7 Youngstown State in match five and round one will conclude with No. 11 Tulane against No. 2 Vanderbilt in match six.
 
The winner's bracket will continue in round two with matches seven and eight on Thursday beginning at 9 a.m. CT. The contender's bracket starts on Thursday at 2 p.m. with match nine.
 
The championship match is scheduled for Sunday, March 22 at 8:30 a.m.
 
Championship Format
The Conference USA Championship is determined by the mega-match format. A mega-match encompasses three different rounds or points, and a team must get to two points to win the match.

The first round is the traditional format. Each team in the match has five players bowl a full game, and each individual's total score is added together for the team total. Whichever team has the highest score from all five individual games wins the point and leads the mega-match 1-0.

The second round of the mega-match is the Baker total pinfall portion, which consists of five games. The winner is determined by adding the pinfall of all five games together. In the Baker format, lineups are comprised of five bowlers with each being responsible for two frames in each game. The leadoff player bowls in frames one and six. The second person in the lineup bowls in frames two and seven, etc. If the team that wins the traditional round also wins the Baker pinfall round, they win the match 2-0. If the team that lost the traditional round wins the Baker point, the mega-match is tied 1-1 and goes to a best-of-seven Baker match play format.

In the best-of-seven tiebreaker format, instead of adding five games together to determine a total, all that matters is the score each game. Winning 300-175 of 176-175 has the same weight. The first team to four games wins the point and wins the mega-match 2-1.