ATLANTA “”mdash; In this week’s edition of “you know you’re in the South when”:
You see a sign for deep fried candy bars and Oreos ““ and they turn out to be really good.
The South is all I expected it to be and more.
The food is greasy, fried and delicious. The bums are friendly. The streets are clean, and the accents are heavy.
I could see this becoming my favorite city.
But that is predicated on one thing: UCLA getting past Florida tomorrow.
I’m a firm believer in counting my eggs before they hatch, but while I think UCLA can handle both Georgetown and Ohio State, Florida worries me enough that I’m not willing to call a victory quite yet.
Sure, UCLA seems looser than any other team in the Final Four. Instead of doing anything like a real practice on Friday during the open practice period, the Bruins practiced lazily on offense for a while and then rained half-court shots for about 10 minutes.
Even Ben Howland made one, but I think he was more intensely focused than any of his players.
Part of that is that Howland doesn’t want to show anyone ““ not the fans, not the opposing players ““ what his practices really look like, so of course the Bruins practice offense. Any true Bruin fan knows that Howland probably spends 90 percent of any practice on defense. Offense is for amateurs.
Florida, on the other hand, looked like it was having a pretty active practice. The Gators did some passing drills that seemed to be just teaching the players how to travel up and down the court, taking four or five steps while chest passing it back and forth to each other.
I mean, I used that drill when I was teaching my fourth graders the art of the chest and bounce passes. We won the championship, so I guess the drills of true winning teams mirror each other.
It’s hard to really glean anything from a practice open to the public; by nature, coaches are a crazily secretive bunch, so they’re not really going to show you anything that is going in their game plan.
I still remain afraid of Florida’s bigs, and I still remain confident in Howland’s ability to coach the Bruins into a competitive game with Florida.
So instead of the practice, let’s focus on things of a scenic variety. The Georgia Dome is huge and many-leveled. Hanging from the ceiling are huge pictures of four schools: Florida, Georgetown, Ohio State and what appears to be Notre Dame, because last time I checked there is no waterfront at UCLA.
There are not a great deal of UCLA fans here, but I think that either the Georgetown fans or Ohio State fans will be cheering for the Bruins on Saturday (depending on which team wins the first game).
Florida had a huge cheering section, as can be expected. A lady in Centennial Olympic Park had her child do the “Gator chomp” at me because I had my very impartial UCLA hat on. I accused her of child abuse.
So Atlanta is nice ““ as of now.
In one day’s time, I could sour on it. The fried grease, now wonderful, could become disgusting. The bums on the street, now friendly and kind, could become an irritant.
It is all dependent on UCLA winning tomorrow.
So Bruins, don’t kill this city for me. Let me look back on these days years from now and remember fondly the fried Milky Ways and national championship.
Just win baby.
Who am I kidding, fried grease could never be bad. E-mail Woods at dwoods@media.ucla.edu.