Rodney Morris
After dominating the BCA points list for the past year Johnny Archer has surrendered his first place spot to Rodney Morris. Morris now has a 20 point lead (354 to 334) over Archer and is only two points ahead of Mika Immonen who currently holds 352 points. After taking non-US passport holders out of the equation, the BCA players in line for the most invitations to overseas events are, in order: Rodney Morris, Johnny Archer, Corey Deuel, Dennis Hatch, Shane Van Boening, Charlie Williams, Mike Dechaine, and Earl Strickland. Strickland enjoyed a large leap upward in the standing via his victory at the Steve Mizerak Championship.
With Corey Deuel only 20 points behind Archer and 40 points behind Morris, the upcoming Turning Stone event looms large as a deciding factor for the Player of the Year honors. As evidenced by the points spread, no one player has dominated the landscape this year and if any of the top-ranked men get hot at both Turning Stone and the Mosconi Cup that could indeed be the combination to put them over the top. Turning Stone has a curious trend going. The last two events have had the same top three finishers. Archer has won them, Morris has placed second and Dennis Hatch has captured third. Corey Deuel has done no better than 13th at the last two Turning Stones and could play spoiler for the other three if this is the time that he gets a hot hand and performs up to his normal standard.
