She’s the one: No more interim, Elzy is officially UK women’s basketball head coach.
During a November news conference introducing Kyra Elzy as interim head coach of the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team, UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said he wanted to see Elzy’s “game plan” in action before deciding whether she was the program’s long-term answer.
Apparently, Barnhart has seen enough.
On Monday, the interim tag was removed and Elzy, 42, was officially made full-time head coach of the Wildcats. Barnhart shared the news during a joint press conference with Elzy.
“Kyra has earned and deserves the opportunity to lead this program into the future,” Barnhart said. “It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce, to take away the interim title, and make Kyra Elzy the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.”
Elzy’s new contract lasts through the 2025-2026 season and will pay her an annual base salary of $400,000 and an additional $175,000 each year for endorsement deals coordinated through UK.
“I really appreciate the opportunity,” Elzy said. “It still has not sunk in.”
Elzy can earn additional income through performance incentives. A regular-season Southeastern Conference championship would trigger a $75,000 bonus. An SEC Tournament championship would yield $50,000.
Her contract also outlines bonus pay for UK’s performance in the NCAA Tournament, including appearances in the Sweet 16 ($75,000), Elite Eight ($150,000) and Final Four ($250,000). Should UK win a national championship, Elzy would earn a bonus of $500,000.
Elzy’s previous contract paid her an annual salary of $275,000 as the top assistant to former UK coach Matthew Mitchell, who abruptly retired after 12 seasons at Kentucky because of health reasons about two weeks before the season began. Mitchell’s last UK contract, signed in 2017, provided him an annual base salary of $825,000 as well as significant compensation through endorsement deals.
Mitchell’s performance incentives were as follows: Elite Eight ($250,000), Final Four ($400,000), national title ($500,000).
Barnhart said Elzy quickly made it clear this season that a national search for a new head coach was unnecessary.
“When you’ve got one of the best right at home, why would you leave home? I felt very comfortable with what we had at home,” Barnhart said. “When we sat down, she had an incredibly well thought-through, detailed plan of the things that she wanted to do to continue to move our program forward.
“When she unveiled that, it became very clear to me that she had thought this through at a pretty high level. It was that kind of high-level thinking I felt like was going to be necessary to get us to a spot where we had a chance to talk about some of the dreams she has aspired to — Final Fours, national championships, those kind of things that our kids dream of and that she was dreaming of.”
Kentucky is off to a 6-0 start and has climbed to No. 9 in the most recent Associated Press Top 25 poll. Following UK’s 88-54 rout of Samford on Sunday, Elzy on Monday informed the team she was being named full-time head coach.
“I was able to tell the team, and the emotion and excitement has me fired up,” Elzy said. “We finished watching film and I kind of called the staff up one by one and I was thanking them for their service and commitment to Kentucky. I just happened to be looking at KeKe McKinney and she was looking at me like, ‘What is about to happen?’
“I said, ‘and so, for the next couple of years, this will be your coaching staff.’ And they jumped up out of their chairs, they were hugging each other and they started hugging us. Today was a great day. It gives everybody the stability that we’re looking for. Now we can put that behind us and focus on the goal at hand.”
Prior to this season, Elzy spent the last five years as associate head coach of the Wildcats under Mitchell. She first joined UK in 2008 as an assistant coach ahead of Mitchell’s second season. Four years later, she left Kentucky to become an assistant under Pat Summitt at Tennessee, acting as the Volunteers’ recruiting coordinator.
In 2016, Elzy returned to UK and helped Mitchell quickly rebuild the program following a tumultuous period in which several players transferred. Elzy played a key role in helping Kentucky sign a top-20 recruiting class in 2017. She was also instrumental in putting together a highly touted 2018 class that included preseason All-American Rhyne Howard.
Next game
No. 9 Kentucky at No. 24 DePaul
When: Wednesday, 3 p.m. EST
Where: Wintrust Arena in Chicago
Live video broadcast: DePaulBlueDemons.com (online only)
Records: Kentucky 6-0 (0-0 SEC), DePaul 2-2 (0-0 Big East)
Series: Kentucky leads 4-0.
Last meeting: Kentucky won 96-85 on Dec. 12, 2013, at DePaul.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 1:09 PM.
