The Creative Process

Okay, write about the women's tennis team. It's Wednesday, and you wanted to do that Monday and yesterday and never got around to it.

They had a huge weekend. Beat two top 25 teams from the Power Five. That's awesome. They're really good.

They were in Seattle last weekend. They were in Seattle of for the NCAA tournament too last spring.

When was that? May. So how many months ago was that? Eight. Wait, it's almost February, so maybe more nine than eight.

Well, when exactly was the NCAA tournament. Check the schedule. Okay. 

GoPrincetonTigers.com. Loading. Loading.

Seattle. BrotherBlog lives there, as opposed to TB, who has lived his whole life in a 45-mile radius of Jadwin Gym. 

Hey, a Carla Berube mic'd up video story. Gotta watch that. Mic'd up videos are always good. And it's a little more than two minutes. Perfect.

That was really good. But wait a second. Why is GPT open in the first place? Looking for ... looking for ... oh yeah. Women's tennis. It was May 3-4 last year, so it's sort of closer to nine months.

Okay, got it. Time to write about women's tennis. But that video was good. Find a way to link that. And the basketball schedule change was announced by the Ivy League. Should get that in too, though it's only Wednesday, so maybe wait on that til later in the week, before the games this weekend? 

Exhale.

Anyway, that was basically a three-minute run through TigerBlog's mind yesterday at one point (minus the part where he was thinking in the third-person).

He goes through that pretty much every day. It's what he calls "the creative process."

Some weeks it's pretty easy to figure out what to write and in what order. Others it isn't.

For this week, he wanted to write about women's tennis, because what they did was special. The Tigers were competing as part of the ITA Kick-off Weekend, which had preliminary rounds on 16 different campuses.

Princeton was at the University of Washington (where BB teaches in the law school, as an aside), where the first opponent would be the host Huskies, who were ranked 17th in the country.

It was Washington who defeated Princeton in the second round of the NCAA tournament last spring, after the Tigers took out Northwestern.

This time, in the rematch, it would be 4-3 Princeton. The deciding point came at No. 5 singles from junior Stephanie Schrage, who dropped the first set 6-1 and then won 6-3, 6-4 from there to clinch it.

That put Princeton in the next round against 11th-ranked USC, which became another 4-3 Princeton win. This time, it would be sophomore Grace Joyce who won the clinching match, 6-3, 7-5.

Here's the winning point:

View this post on Instagram

Princeton defeats #11 USC to win the ITA kickoff and earn a bid into National Indoors! Congrats to sophomore GRACIE JOYCE on this awesome clinch...consider the Jad defended 🐯🖤 #TILIS #DEFENDTHEJAD

A post shared by PRINCETON WOMEN'S TENNIS (@princetonwtennis) on Jan 26, 2020 at 7:19pm PST

The wins advance Princeton to the final 16 of the ITA Indoor National Championships, which will be held in Chicago in two weeks.

Princeton has won five of the last six Ivy titles, including the last two. It's an impressive record of sustained success, and all five of those championships have come since Laura Granville became head coach in 2012.

The Tigers will be busy from now on, starting Saturday, also in Chicago, to take on Northwestern. Between then and the Ivy opener March 28, there will be trips to, among other places, Chicago again and then Alabama, Florida, Virginia and Michigan.

There will even be some home matches, including Towson and FDU on Feb. 15.

As TB said, he wanted to talk about the women's tennis team earlier in the week. They certainly deserve any praise for their performance out there.

Also, if you want to see the Berube video, click HERE.

As he said, TB likes the mic'd up videos. They give a really good feel for what it's like to be there and insight into the coach.

And the basketball schedule change?

That can wait for another day, and another creative process.