Every year coach Billy Martin marks one tournament on his calendar.
It is always the third week of January. It is always the last tournament before the regular season starts. And it is always the first opportunity for his team to earn their preseason ranking.
This tournament is his last chance to see his players in pressured match play before he has to make the difficult decision of setting the lineup. This tournament is the Sherwood Collegiate Cup.
“Sherwood is going to be a tough tournament,” said sophomore Joseph Di Giulio. “All the teams are good, all the players are good. The matches are going to be tough. So we have just been training really hard the last few weeks to get ready for this and the season.“
UCLA will face off against some of the best schools in the country – No. 1 USC, No. 6 Baylor and No. 30 Stanford. The Bruins look to earn their No. 4 preseason ranking starting this Friday at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.
A lot of the Bruins have been preparing for this tournament just like any other tournament, but there is a sense that Sherwood means a little more to them because of its implications regarding the lineup.
“How you do in (this tournament) can affect on where you are in the lineup for the season,” said redshirt junior Karue Sell.
Martin’s players are highly competitive and a majority of them have pro aspirations – so where they are in the lineup matters significantly to them. The nature of the sport forces Martin into the awkward position of choosing the order of who is better.
“Not everyone is going to be happy about their position, but that is how it works,” Di Giulio said. “I think we all have an idea of what it is going to be. We are a pretty close team so we will be fine.”
Martin has been making sure the last few months that his players understand how the lineup is prepared, so there will be little disappointment and so everyone is on the same page. He wants his players to know why they are placed where they are.
“At the end of the fall I thought I had a good idea that if I had to make a lineup that day where guys would be, but you know, some guys go home and really have a great holiday and don’t do a whole lot,” Martin said. “They come back a little out of shape, moms have fed them, they have put on a few extra pounds. I tell them I am not going to do it on how you did last year, or how you played three months ago. It’s got to be now unfortunately.”
With contributing reports by Matt Cummings, Bruin Sports contributor.