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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A woman in mirrored sunglasses with her shirt collar flipped up pops up on the video screen aboard the bus carrying Tennessee to its first NCAA Tournament game this season. She offers the Vols a mission, if they choose to accept it.
The players burst out laughing at their coach, the stern, no-nonsense Pat Summitt, acting out a spoof of the movie Mission: Impossible to motivate them at the NCAA Tournament.
The Vols' version is titled Mission: Possible, and players will watch the final tape in the miniseries Sunday on the way to their game against LSU in a national semifinal in New Orleans.
Summitt is getting more into her role for the final performance.
"I'm going to have my hair slicked back," she said.
She refuses, however, to divulge details of Tennessee's next mission. "I can't tell you that," she said, laughing.
But everyone knows the goal: winning a seventh championship, Tennessee's first since 1998.
Top-seeded Tennessee (30-3) makes its 15th and third straight appearance in the Final Four. A win over LSU would put the Vols in the title game against either Connecticut or Minnesota.
Summitt's staff has for years put together highlight reels with motivating music to show the players during the NCAAs. Last year's theme was the Wizard of Oz.
So far the team has seen two videos - one in Tallahassee for the opener and one in Norman, Okla., for the Midwest Region games. "Ladies, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is survive in Tallahassee and advance to Norman," Summitt said in the first.
Each message is followed by a highlight clip of each player, who has been given an agent code name in keeping with the theme. The tapes are a hit.
"It was funny. You wouldn't expect Coach to give us the message," injured Tennessee guard Loree Moore said.
WINTHROP: Bud Childers, who turned around programs at Louisville and James Madison, became the program's 12th coach and the first man to hold the position. He spent last season as an associate coach at Southern Miss. Childers replaces Cheryl Nix, who was reassigned in the athletic department after four seasons as coach.