March 28, 2022 Nolan Hughes

Well, folks: This is it. One tournament remains to decide which 16 athletes will advance to the Kia PBA Playoffs—and it’s a major.

The 64-player bracket format deems total pinfall largely irrelevant, but it's a different story for players near the playoff cut.

Qualifying totals could serve as a decisive tiebreaker for players eliminated in the same round. For example, current No. 17 Nick Pate trails No. 16 Jake Peters by 270 points — the exact difference between 9th and 12th place. So his qualifying total could mean the difference between the end of his season and an opportunity to compete in the postseason.

The intricacies of this format are far too great for my feeble mind to grasp before competition begins. We'll just have to wait and see how things shake out. (And cross our fingers for no ties; or for one if you enjoy that sort of thing.)

Here's the current list. Check out the full standings here.

1. Jason Belmonte - 32,085
With an eighth-place finish in Colorado Springs, Belmonte has locked up the top seed for the Kia PBA Playoffs. But we all know the four-time Masters champion will be as motivated as ever this week.

2. Dom Barrett - 22,655
Fresh off a win in the final THE STORM CUP event of the season, Barrett leaps into second place in the points race. No player found more consistent success in THE STORM CUP events than Barrett: He posted four top-eight finishes, and the highest average finish of any player with at least three events.

It looked like Belmonte had locked up the Player of the Year award, but Barrett’s victory in Colorado kept the door ajar. He became the second player to win multiple titles in 2022, but he still trails Belmonte by two more. He’ll likely need to win the USBC Masters and the Kia PBA Playoffs to upend the Australian for the award, though a major win and an admirable showing in the playoffs could be enough.

3. EJ Tackett - 22,425
Tackett ceded ground to Belmonte in season-long average with a 20th-place finish in Colorado, but maintains a slight lead (225.92 - 225.88). Tackett finished seventh at this Masters last year, his best finish since 2014.

Barrett’s not the only player left who could halt Belmonte: Tackett, as well as Prather and Simonsen, could also contend for Player of the Year with wins at the Masters and Playoffs.

4. Kristopher Prather - 18,750
The recently crowned PBA World Champion opted to sit out the Lubbock Sports Open, but returned to action with an 18th-place finish in Colorado. (Why one would voluntarily travel to frosty Colorado instead of balmy Texas if given the choice… who knows.)

With just one title in 2022, Prather’s Player of the Year hopes could have used an opportunity for another in Lubbock — but he’ll be bowling in the postseason either way.

5. Anthony Simonsen - 18,695
After withdrawing from the Lubbock Sports Open, Simonsen did not make the trip to the Rockies. He’ll return to the lanes at the Masters, a mere 10-minute drive south on I-15 from his home center in Las Vegas.

6. Tommy Jones - 15,130
Jones sits sixth in the points race, and has finished no lower than sixth in each of the four majors this season. His average and median finish of 4.75 and 5.0, respectively, rank second among all players who bowled in at least two majors. At this stage in the Hall of Famer’s career, he knows how to bring his absolute best when it matters most.

7. Sean Rash - 13,610
Nursing a back injury, Rash sat out the final two THE STORM CUP tournaments. He’s been the fourth-best player on tour in majors this season, in terms of average and median finish, so he’ll look to find similar success at the Masters provided his health holds up.

8. Kyle Troup - 12,853
Troup has endured a bridesmaid-but-never-the-bride season, as he’s been the first player of the show in three of the last six events. However, he has finished in the top 26 in each major this season; only five other players who have bowled each major have done the same.

9. Jakob Butturff - 12,610
A tough U.S. Open performance decimates his average finish in majors, but his median finish of 11.5 ranks eighth among players who competed in at least three majors. He won the event in 2019 and will look for a second Masters title this week.

9. Kyle Sherman - 12,610
Sherman and Butturff are no playoff locks, but the scenario in which either drops out involves a convoluted sequence of events. One would have to miss the cut, then have their competitors finish as follows: Svensson top 24, Hanrahan and Sterner top 16, Johnson top eight, O’Neill top six, Peters top four, Pate/Daugherty/Maldonado top three and another player near the cut win the Masters.

Did that make sense to anyone? Probably not. How about Sherman and Butturff finish in like 24th (or better!) and make our lives easier.

11. Jesper Svensson - 11,740
Svensson’s up-and-mostly-down season continued in Colorado Springs with a 26th-place finish. More than three-fourths of the Swede’s points came from three events—his STORM CUP win in Jackson, a fourth-place finish in Lubbock and a ninth-place finish in the World Championship — and he’ll look for one more premier performance to cap off the regular season and hold onto a playoff berth.

12. Packy Hanrahan - 11,298
Hanrahan’s streak of six consecutive top-15 finishes came to an end in Colorado Springs, as he took 62nd place. He’ll have a few hundred more competitors this week, but qualifying 62nd is as good as first at the Masters. At least until match play starts.

13. Jason Sterner - 11,240
Sterner’s best finish in a THE STORM CUP event was just 16th, but he remains inside the current playoff cut. He holds just a 1,710-point lead over the 17-seed, so he’s got work to do in Las Vegas.

14. AJ Johnson - 10,525
Heading into the Masters, Johnson has racked up top-16 finishes in each of his three majors this season. He’ll need to sustain that level in order to hang onto a playoff spot; a 1,000-point lead means little entering a Tier 1 tournament.

15. Bill O'Neill - 10,200
O’Neill finished 15th, 15th and 17th in the last three THE STORM CUP events, so it’s fitting he sits in 15th place in the overall standings. His physical game and experience is almost always enough to make the first cut, but he’s rarely matched up well enough to contend this season. But another ho-hum 16th-place finish might spell doom for O’Neill. With a 670-point cushion, if any two players near the cut have Saint Peter’s-esque run, O’Neill could be eliminated from the playoffs.

16. Jake Peters - 9,800
While the reward for finishing 16th is a date with Belmonte, Peters and any player on his heels would, of course, jump at the opportunity. The elevated number of ties at the Masters could play in Peters’ favor, as he holds the slightest advantage over Pate and Daugherty, but even a strong performance could end his season.

17. Nicholas Pate - 9,530
It’s almost unbelievable Pate remains in playoff contention after not competing in two majors (and not bowling well in a third). But he buoyed his major absences with a dominant STORM CUP season. His average finish of 10.25 ranked third among players who competed in at least three events; furthermore, his median finish of 4.5 tied with Belmonte for the best on tour.

17. Tom Daugherty - 9,530
Daugherty has been riding a roller coaster in majors this season, with two top-14 finishes and another two outside the top 40. He’ll need another stellar showing like his seventh-place U.S. Open finish to sneak into the cut—and if he sneaks in, Daugherty has proven to be a tough out in Florida.

19. Shawn Maldonado - 9,335
Since his run at the Kia PBA Tournament of Champions, Maldonado has slowly slipped down the playoff standings. But he trails Peters by just 465 points, so he’s far from finished.

20. Brad Miller - 9,085
Miller posted consecutive ninth-place finishes in the final two THE STORM CUP events, which kept his playoff hopes alive. A win at the Masters would represent the single-greatest achievement of Miller’s bowling career thus far, but more importantly, at least for the purposes of this article, it would also clinch a playoff spot for the 31-year-old. Moreover, a Masters win would lock up a playoff berth for virtually any player near the cut, and could be enough for any player inside the top 40 or so.

On the bubble: Chris Via, Tom Smallwood, Matt Russo, DJ Archer

Check out the full points standings here.