‘These are never easy days.’ Everything Mitch Barnhart said after firing UK’s Kyra Elzy.

Following the Monday morning announcement that Kyra Elzy has been relieved of her duties as head coach of Kentucky women’s basketball, UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart filled in during Elzy’s typical time slot on the UK Sports Network’s “Kyra Elzy Show” to discuss the change.

“These are never easy days,” Barnhart said Monday night. “First, I want to thank Kyra Elzy for just her incredible love for this institution and the effort that she put forth to try and move our basketball program along. And I think back to the SEC championship down in Nashville (in 2022) and we celebrated that and just struggled to build on that just a bit and felt like we needed to do something a little bit different. But I want to thank her and have so much respect for her as a person, and think that she will continue to do amazing things somewhere in her journey. And we wish her all the best and her and her family.”

Barnhart went on to say that the athletics department is already receiving interest in the opening, with “a lot of people” having called Monday.

“What we have found is that this is a good destination for someone,” Barnhart said. “There’s a lot of interest. We’ve had a lot of people call today. We’re going to take a broad look at it and national look at it. I’ve got a couple staff members that are working with me, and so we’re, we’ve got a lot to offer at the University of Kentucky. And I think that’s really, really important. So when you think about the things that have been built over the last 15 years in our women’s basketball program, we’ve had some incredible wins. We’ve had an opportunity to win a conference championship, a regular season title and a tournament title, and there’s not a lot of schools that have done that. And clearly we want to build on that.”

Barnhart also expressed the desire to “get back in that conversation” about SEC women’s basketball, which boasts the past two seasons’ national champions in LSU (2023) and South Carolina (2022). At the time of the writing of this article, ESPN’s Charlie Creme predicts nine SEC programs will make the NCAA Tournament field of 68.

“You’ve got some programs in our league that have continued to build the brand of women’s basketball in the Southeastern Conference,” Barnhart said. “So we’ve got some work to do to get back in that conversation. But then you add things like what (UK president) Dr. (Eli) Capilouto has done with the institution, and the unbelievable atmosphere we’ve got on our campus in terms of physical facilities. And the incredible thing I think is most intriguing at this point in time is the $85 million expansion and renovation of Memorial Coliseum. So it will open substantially completed this fall, we’ll be playing volleyball games and women’s basketball games and gymnastics and STUNT will all be there this fall.

“I think the facility is going to be an amazing place. And then we’ve got brand new life, room and facilities for our women’s basketball program, and so lots of benefits and assets. We’re in the Southeastern Conference, which is a dynamic league in the world the way that college athletics is changing. We think it’s a dynamic place to be, in the Southeastern Conference with the leadership of Greg Sankey, and so there’s a lot of really great positives for us to move forward with. We’ve just got to identify the right person.”

Barnhart went on to say that there will need to be “some pieces of continuity” to the current roster, and said the program will “then build out of that” through the transfer portal, among other things. Of the 11 players on the 2023-24 UK roster, 10 retain at least one year of eligibility; graduate guard Emma King used her fifth and final season of eligibility this year.

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“In the world that we’re in, within the transfer portal and all of those things, the rosters are fluid,” Barnhart said. “And that doesn’t mean that’s where we want to live, or we want to build out of all that. There’s gonna have to be some pieces of continuity to what we have, and then build out of that through the things that are available to us.”

Barnhart concluded his thoughts on the state of the women’s basketball program by voicing his appreciation for the fans who supported the team, “even when we were struggling down the stretch,” and mentioned he held “a lot” of conversations Monday with boosters about the future of the program.

“People were still coming to women’s basketball games,” Barnhart said. “Wanting our team to do well, cheering them on and been very, very, very supportive. And so, thankful for that. I’ve had a lot of conversations today with boosters that have been just very involved in our women’s basketball program for the last 10-15 years and incredibly supportive and ready to do things that are helpful to move us forward.”

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