Kyra Elzy out as head coach of Kentucky women’s basketball. National search underway.
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Kyra Elzy is out as the head coach of Kentucky women’s basketball, UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart announced in a press release Monday morning.
“I appreciate Kyra for her efforts at Kentucky, on and off the court, and wish her and her family the best in the future,” Barnhart said.
The decision comes four days after the Wildcats’ 2023-24 season concluded on Thursday with a 78-62 loss to Tennessee in the second round of the SEC Tournament, finishing the year with an overall season record of 12-20 and 4-12 in conference play.
UK said it will begin a national search for a new head coach.
Elzy, the only head coach in program history to lead UK to the NCAA Tournament in each of their first two seasons, departs the program with three seasons remaining on her contract, the result of an extension she received after guiding the Wildcats to the SEC Tournament championship in 2022.
That same contract requires UK to pay Elzy $2.475 million after her exit unless the parties agree to a different settlement.
Elzy leaves the program after four seasons as head coach and several years in various assistant roles.
Elzy finished 61-60 as Kentucky’s head coach with an SEC regular-season record of 23-40. The Wildcats went 6-26 in league play over the past two seasons.
She worked on Matthew Mitchell’s staff as an assistant coach from 2008-10. She also served as the team’s associate head coach from 2010-12 and 2016-20. In between those stints, Elzy worked four seasons at Tennessee, her alma mater, as an assistant coach.
Elzy was granted the title of interim head coach prior to the start of the 2020-21 season after Mitchell’s surprise resignation in November. Barnhart removed Elzy’s interim tag in December 2020 after the team opened the season with a 6-0 record and surged to No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Wildcats finished that season with a second-round exit in the NCAA Tournament to Iowa and an overall record of 18-9 and 9-6 in conference play.
Though the Wildcats ended the 2021-22 season with a record of 19-12 (8-8 SEC) and a first-round upset loss to Princeton in the NCAA Tournament, they also earned the second-ever SEC Tournament championship in program history — and the first since 1982 — by knocking off Mississippi State, LSU, Tennessee and eventual national champion South Carolina en route to hoisting the trophy.
Only five members of the 2022 SEC Tournament championship roster returned for the following season — Rhyne Howard graduated and became the program’s first-ever top-overall pick in the WNBA Draft and WNBA Rookie of the Year, while Dre’una Edwards, Treasure Hunt, Jazmine Massengill and Olivia Owens all opted to transfer to other Power Five programs.
Ahead of the 2022-23 campaign, Elzy brought in senior forward Adebola Adeyeye (Buffalo), junior forward Ajae Petty (LSU) and junior guards Eniya Russell (South Carolina) and Maddie Scherr (Oregon) via the transfer portal and a six-member freshman class that included top-70 recruit Tionna Herron and 2022 Miss Kentucky Basketball honoree Amiya Jenkins. The Wildcats ended the year tied for last in the SEC with Texas A&M with a record of 12-19 (2-14 SEC) and missed the NCAA Tournament.
After the season, the Wildcats graduated three of their regular contributors in Adeyeye, leading scorer Robyn Benton and fifth-year senior Blair Green. Impact freshman Kennedy Cambridge (Ohio State), starting veteran guard Jada Walker (Baylor) and Herron (Texas) all transferred out of the program for new opportunities, and starting junior forward Nyah Leveretter was out for the foreseeable future while recovering from a torn ACL sustained late in the season.
Ahead of this season, Elzy added 2022 Miss Kentucky Basketball Brooklynn Miles (Tennessee) from the transfer portal and incoming freshmen Jordy Griggs and Janaé Walker. Miles started the majority of games this season while Walker’s usage gradually increased over the course of the year. Griggs only saw the floor in four games.
Kentucky won 12 games this season, even putting together a four-game winning streak at one point but, in many games, the Wildcats were barely competitive.
UK’s 20 losses this season included defeats to mid-majors Austin Peay and Florida Gulf Coast. The Wildcats suffered a pair of embarrassing defeats to No. 1 South Carolina by 62 and 48 points. They were also beaten by 37 by Colorado, 30 by Ole Miss, 29 by North Carolina State, 28 by Auburn and 27 by Arkansas. Seventeen of their 20 losses were by double digits.
The Wildcats were also dire statistically, ranking among the nation’s worst teams in numerous categories.
UK ranked 347th (out of 349 NCAA Division I teams) in field goal percentage defense (46.3) and 334th in scoring defense (allowing 74.3 points per game).
Offensively, Kentucky ranked 336th in free throw shooting percentage (63.43), 234th in field goal percentage (39.35) and 243rd in 3-point field goal percentage (29.22). The Wildcats ranked 269th in rebounds per game (34.19).
Elzy’s teams not only lacked punch on the court the past two seasons but the UK head coach struggled to bring high-level high school recruits into the program, relying more heavily on the transfer portal.
Barnhart addressed the program’s struggles following a UK Board of Trustees athletics committee meeting a couple of weeks ago.
“Women’s basketball is struggling to find a way to get to the top half of the league,” Barnhart said. “There’s no mystery in that. You can look at the record and see that. We’ve got a little bit of time left to do some things in the regular season, and then you get to the (SEC) tournament.
“Kyra has always had some success in the tournament. But at the end of the day, Kyra is one of ours and she has worked diligently hard to represent this program the right way, and we’ll just keep battling with her and our women on our team.”
After Kentucky’s Feb. 29 loss to Ole Miss, Elzy said she believed she would return for the 2024-25 season in response to a question regarding her future with the team.
“Well, I believe I’m gonna be back here,” Elzy said. “No one’s told me any different. And so, until then, my job is to continue to coach this team and get us ready. Heading into postseason, that’s where my mind is. I’m sure that I’ll meet with the administration after the season, but right now I am the head coach here and I’m gonna put my head down and grind and continue to work.”
Elzy reiterated that stance after Thursday’s season-ending loss to Tennessee.
During Elzy’s tenure as head coach, two players were dismissed from the team, both for not upholding the standards of the program. Erin Toller, a Louisville native out of Sacred Heart Academy’s senior class of 2019, was dismissed in early October of her sophomore year. Zennia Thomas, a forward from Lyndhurst, Ohio, was dismissed in January of this year, midway through her sophomore season.
Of the 12 players who started their college careers at UK under Elzy, only half of them were still with the team at the time of this writing.
Of Kentucky’s 11 scholarship players, only fifth-year senior Emma King has exhausted her eligibility. Seniors Leveretter and Russell — both of whom celebrated Senior Day at the end of February — and Petty and Scherr — who didn’t — could return for a fifth “COVID season” granted by the NCAA.
The Wildcats have two freshmen committed for next season in 6-foot-5 center Ramiya White of Butler Traditional (Louisville), who signed with the Wildcats in November, and 6-1 wing Tanah Becker of Hamilton Heights Christian Academy (Chattanooga, Tennessee), who verbally committed at the end of February.
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