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The No. 9 Illini men's golf team will open its spring schedule this weekend at the Big Ten Match Play event in Coral Springs, Fla. The defending Big Ten champions are the top seed and received a first-round bye. Mike Small's squad  will face the winner of Penn State vs. Purdue at 11:38 a.m. Friday.

The Illini, who won two fall tournaments, last played a competitive round as a team on Nov. 4. Even with access to its indoor facility, Small wouldn't presume to predict how his team will perform this weekend in its return outdoors.

"For me, the whole point of this is to see where our guys are golfwise," Small said. "Until you're in competition, you never really know. We're going to learn a lot from this week to come back and address those issues for our stroke-play events later in spring. Without this event, I'd still be kind of in the dark about where we're at."

Three of the six Illini entered in the two-day event are ranked in the national top 75: Scott Langley (No. 24), Luke Guthrie (36) and Zach Barlow (74).

Illinois went 1-2 and finished fourth as the top seed last year in the inaugural Big Ten Match Play. The league began the event in response to the NCAA's switch to a match-play format for its top eight finalists at the national tournament.

"You have to stay in the moment," Small said of match play. "It exposes mental weaknesses. If you miss a shot early in the round (in stroke play), you've got the rest of the time to make up for it. But in match play every hole is a different competition."