Last summer, Kyra Elzy couldn't wait to get home from a long, difficult day at the office.

The assistant coach for the Kentucky women's basketball team can't remember what had made that day so bad, she just remembered wanting to get home to relax.

As she pulled into her driveway, she found several neighbors standing in front of her house staring at it.

Then she saw them: more than 200 white forks stuck tine-side up all over her yard.

"I was like, 'What are you all doing here and what are these forks doing in my yard?" Elzy asked her neighbors. "I just lost it. I just went over the edge. ... The more forks I saw, the madder I got."

All coaches work hard to develop team chemistry.

But in the last few months, Kentucky's coaches have probably wished for a little less chemistry.

Since early this summer, UK's players have become so close that they've started turning on their own coaches.

Harmless pranks have struck Elzy twice and head coach Matthew Mitchell at least once.

The players involved refer to themselves as the Women in Black, but when they're not sticking forks in yards or filling up Mitchell's SUV with birthday balloons and streamers, they're wearing Kentucky blue and white.

They will take the court hoping to frustrate top-seeded Nebraska on Sunday in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament at Kansas City, Mo.

The Tour de Forks started with boredom one summer night and four Cats at a Wal-Mart sometime after 11 p.m.

"We decided we wanted to go toilet paper and fork Coach Mitchell's yard," junior guard Carly Morrow said.

So the players bought some supplies and headed over to Mitchell's house.

There was a snag in their plan.

"We were staking out his house," senior Amani Franklin explained. "We could see him sitting in the living room watching TV."

They waited for more than an hour and he didn't move.

"He wouldn't go to sleep that night so we couldn't get him," Morrow said. "We had to move on to Coach Elzy."

So Franklin, Morrow, forward Victoria Dunlap and point guard Amber Smith got Elzy instead.

The assistant coach pretended to be mad and had the group come pick up the forks, but she now sees it as one of the many ways this close-knit team really started to bond.

"You can see a big change from a year ago as far as team chemistry," she said. "A year ago, everybody was just doing their own thing. Now, if you call one of them, they're all together. They spend a lot of time together."

Dunlap said the fun they're having off the court can be seen on it.

"We like being around each other and we have fun with each other and that helps on the court," Dunlap said. "We have fun times, just random fun times."

Some other "fun times" involved another prank on Elzy, who was out of town recruiting. She knew something was up when the players called fishing for her itinerary.

Before Elzy was set to return, they went to the Lexington Airport and covered her car in more than 612 Post-It Notes.

"I think it was 612 sticky notes," Elzy said, recalling some of her favorite notes, which included: "All is fair in love and war;" "Wash your car;" "You messed with the wrong ones, baby."

Elzy tricked the players and arrived home earlier than she told them, just in time to see several figures cloaked in black "noting" her car.

"I saw her and freaked," Dunlap said. "There's an echo in the garage and I'm yelling and we just take off running."

Elzy called out, but the Women in Black disappeared over the first-floor wall.

Elzy had to clean up the notes herself.

The same players got Mitchell on his birthday, but this time it wasn't just the four of them. They got everyone in on the act.

"It was the best because it involved the whole team," Franklin said. "Now the whole team are the WIB."

The entire team, clad in black clothes (including Rebecca Gray with a black mask), went to Wal-Mart again and got supplies.

They bought a bunch of balloons, car paint, some Hannah Montana streamers.

With some help from Jenna Mitchell, the coach's wife, they sneaked in the garage and got their coach's vehicle.

"That was over-the-top funny," Smith said. "Just to know that we have coaches that can take it is fun. They're real funny."

The coaches haven't done much to get the players back, but Elzy said they should be on the lookout.

"We'll wait until they think we've forgotten and then we'll bombard them," Elzy said. "We'll get them. Don't worry.

"I'm waiting for my big revenge. I'm going to get them all at one time. ... I'm gonna get them real good."

Smith rolled her eyes.

"She's just talking," Smith said. "She's doing a lot of talking."

Franklin agreed.

"They keep saying they're going to get us back but they haven't," Franklin said. "We're still waiting ... If I were them, I'd watch their back instead."