5 candidates to replace Kyra Elzy as Kentucky’s women’s basketball coach, including Tomekia Reed

After four seasons, the Kyra Elzy era is over at Kentucky. The Wildcats announced Elzy's dismissal as their head women's basketball coach in a press release issued Monday morning.

In a statement, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart said: “I appreciate Kyra for her efforts at Kentucky, on and off the court, and wish her and her family the best in the future."

Elzy's firing marks the first opening at a major conference school in the coaching carousel cycle of the 2024 offseason. Kentucky says it will begin a national search to find a successor for Elzy, who went 61-60 across four seasons.

The 45-year-old Elzy -- who won two national championships as a player for Pat Summitt at Tennessee in the late 1990s -- got the Kentucky job when longtime Wildcats coach Matthew Mitchell retired just before the start of the 2020-21 season. Elzy had been the associate head coach for the Wildcats from 2106 to 2020. After leading Kentucky to the second round of the NCAA tournament as the interim coach, Elzy got the full-time gig the next season and led the Wildcats to a surprising upset of South Carolina for the SEC Tournament title.

But since then -- and since the departure of All-American Rhyne Howard -- Kentucky has posted back-to-back losing seasons under Elzy where the Wildcats went 6-26 in SEC play.

Between 2010 and 2022 -- under the direction of Mitchell and then Elzy -- the Wildcats went to 11 NCAA tournaments, finished ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll 12 times, and topped 20 wins in 10 seasons. Simply put, the Wildcats are used to winning. And Kentucky is a place with resources and deep pockets, and it's also a place that just invested $82 million into renovating Memorial Coliseum, where its women's college basketball team plays.

And so, Kentucky will be a job that attracts a lot of good candidates. Below are a few names that could be in the mix.