The 2020 PBA League Draft will be held Sunday, May 17, at 7 pm ET, and presented virtually, live on FloBowling, the PBA announced today. The draft will be conducted remotely for the first time, with team managers making their selections from their home locations due to COVID-19.
The PBA League, established in 2013 by the Professional Bowlers Association, features 5-player teams of the top bowlers in the world. Competition is slated for July 20-23 in Portland, ME, at Bayside Bowl, with live coverage of the seeding round on FloBowling, July 20, and finals on FS1, July 21-23.
The League will be adding two expansion clubs this season, the Las Vegas High Rollers and the Brew City (Milwaukee) Ballers, bringing the the number of teams to 10.
The High Rollers, managed by PBA Hall of Famer Amleto Monacelli and Ballers, managed by fellow PBA Hall of Famer Marshall Holman, own the first selections (based on coin toss) and will fill out their full 5-player rosters at the draft.
The other eight teams, including defending champion Portland Lumberjacks, will make two selections during the serpentine draft to fill out their five player rosters. Each of the eight original teams (Portland, L.A. X, Dallas Strikers, NYC KingPins, Silver Lake Atom Splitters, Motown Muscle, Brooklyn Styles and Philadelphia Hitmen) have previously protected three players from their 2019 rosters (listed below).
Lumberjacks manager Tim Mack, by virtue of his team's Elias Cup winning performance in 2019, twill select 10th in third round, and first in the 4th round.
To be eligible for the draft, players must be ranked in the top 75 from a rolling PBA points list of 2019 and 2020 events. Headlining the list of eligible players are PBA champions Sean Rash, Francois Lavoie, Dick Allen, Andrew Anderson, BJ Moore, Jake Peters, Thomas Larsen, Jason Sterner, Ryan Ciminelli, DJ Archer, Osku Palermaa, Andres Gomez, Richard Teece, Ronnie Russell, Matt Ogle, Matt Sanders, Graham Fach, Ryan Shafer and Chris Loschetter. (Full draft eligible list below).
The 2020 Draft was originally slated for March 15 at the site of the PBA World Series of Bowling in Las Vegas, but was postponed due to COVID-19.
PBA CEO Colie Edison and PBA Tour Commissioner Tom Clark made the announcement of the virtual draft Wednesday April 29th on FloBowling.
Draft order:
First pick, for expansion teams Brew City or Las Vegas decided by coin toss to launch draft. Then, those two expansion teams will get first two rounds: For example (in scenario Las Vegas wins coin toss):
Round 1: 1. Las Vegas (if win coin toss). 2. Brew City.
Round 2. 1. Brew City. 2. Las Vegas.
Then, other teams join snake draft, in reverse order of finish in 2019, with expansion teams first.
Two rounds of full league draft will finalize existing team rosters.
Round 3: 1. Las Vegas. 2. Milwaukee. 3. Philadelphia. 4. Brooklyn. 5. Motown. 6. Silver Lake. 7. NYC. 8. Dallas. 9. L.A. 10. Portland
Round 4: 1. Portland. 2. L.A. 3. Dallas. 4. NYC. 5. Silver Lake. 6. Motown. 7. Brooklyn. 8. Philadelphia. 9. Milwaukee. 10. Las Vegas.
Round 5 (expansion teams only, to complete rosters): 1. Las Vegas. 2. Milwaukee.
Draft complete.
Draft eligible players (listed in order by PBA points 2019-2020):
5 Sean Rash Montgomery, Ill. 41,360.00
13 Francois Lavoie, Canada 28,660.50
17 Dick Allen, Lexington, S.C. 24,622.50
19 AJ Johnson, Oswego, Ill. 24,165.50
20 Brad Miller, Lees Summit, Mo. 23,990.00
22 Darren Tang, Las Vegas 22,138.00
25 Nicholas Pate, Inver Grove Heights, Minn. 18,440.00
27 Andrew Anderson, Holly, Mich. 17,838.00
30 AJ Chapman, Manchester, Iowa 16,887.50
31 BJ Moore, Greensburg, Pa. 16,378.00
32 Mitch Hupe, Canada 16,185.50
33 Jake Peters Henderson, Nev. 15,325.00
34 Thomas Larsen, Denmark 15,288.00
35 Jason Sterner, Rochester, NY 15,278.00
36 Anthony Lavery-Spahr, Pasadena, Texas 14,672.50
37 Ryan Ciminelli Lancaster, S.C. 14,500.50
38 DJ Archer Friendswood, Texas 14,290.00
39 Chris Via Springfield, Ohio 14,115.00
40 Zacharay Wilkins, Canada 14,090.50
41 Osku Palermaa, Finland 13,615.00
42 Patrick Girard, Canada 13,455.00
43 Andres Gomez, Colombia 12,080.00
44 Sam Cooley, Australia 11,723.00
45 Mykel Holliman, Collierville, Tenn. 11,320.00
46 Michael Tang, San Francisco 11,065.00
47 Richard Teece, England 10,620.00
49 Patrick Hanrahan, Wichita, Kan. 10,440.00
50 Christopher Sloan, Ireland 10,415.00
51 Martin Larsen, Sweden 10,390.00
52 Greg Ostrander, Brick, N.J. 9,588.00
53 Ronnie Russell, Marion, Ind. 9,337.50
54 Arturo Quintero, Mexico 8,628.00
55 Sean Lavery-Spahr, Pasadena, Texas 8,562.50
56 Greg Young Viera, Fla. 8,490.00
57 Matthew Ogle, Louisville, Ky. 8,447.50
58 Matthew McNiel, Minneapolis, Minn. 8,300.00
59 Nick Kruml, Downers Grove, Ill. 8,183.00
60 Ildemaro Ruiz, Venezuela 7,752.50
61 Matt Sanders, Indianapolis 7,340.00
62 Kenneth Ryan, Farmingdale, NJ 7,235.00
63 Nathan Bohr, Austin, Texas 6,915.00
65 Kamron Doyle, Brentwood, Tenn. 6,623.00
66 Zeke Bayt, Westerville, Ohio 6,445.00
67 Brandon Novak, Chillicothe, Ohio 6,358.00
68 Brian Robinson, Morgantown, W.Va. 6,332.50
69 Graham Fach, Canada 6,152.50
70 Ryan Shafer, Horseheads, N.Y. 5,872.50
71 Michael Davidson, Versailles, Ohio 5,770.00
72 Jake Rollins, Glen Rock, N.J. 5,758.00
73 Chris Loschetter, Avon, Ohio 5,733.00
74 Michael Martell, Brooklyn, N.Y. 5,628.00
75 Pontus Andersson, Sweden 5,455.00
Current PBA League team rosters (three protected players from 2019):
Motown Muscle
Manager: Del Ballard
EJ Tackett
Anthony Simonsen
Josh Blanchard
Philadelphia Hitmen
Manager: Jason Couch
Dom Barrett
Tom Smallwood
Shawn Maldonado
Brooklyn Styles
Manager: Johnny Petraglia
Walter Ray Williams Jr.
Brad Angelo
Rhino Page
Dallas Strikers
Manager: Norm Duke
Norm Duke
Tommy Jones
Bill O'Neill
L.A. X
Manager: Andrew Cain
Jason Belmonte
Jakob Butturff
Stu Williams
Portland Lumberjacks
Manager: Tim Mack
Wes Malott
Kyle Troup
Kris Prather
Silver Lake Atom Splitters
Manager: Mark Baker
Chris Barnes
Jesper Svensson
Tom Daugherty
NYC KingPins
Manager: Carolyn Dorin-Ballard
Pete Weber
Marshall Kent
Kyle Sherman
Expansion teams:
Las Vegas High Rollers
Manager: Amleto Monacelli
Brew City Ballers
Manager: Marshall Holman
