Kyra Elzy is wESPN national coach of the week. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Beating consecutive Southeastern Conference opponents ranked in the top 10 has earned espnW national coach of the week honors for Kentucky’s Kyra Elzy. But Tuesday she admitted she’s not even sure she’s the boss of the UK program even with her promotion after the retirement of long-time coach Matthew Mitchell.
“I received the award, then I get a text message, it was from (assistant coach) Amber Smith and she said, ‘National Coach of the Week, here is your list of recruits to call, please make sure you call these recruits and check back in with the staff.’ So, you know, way to keep you humble, right?” Elzy said.
Did she make the calls?
“Yes. Coach Amber, I don’t know how the roles have changed. I recruited her and coached her at the University of Kentucky, and now she has become my boss. But yes, I do get my checklist done so that she won’t fuss at me. I have to remain coachable.”
Kentucky gets no break in the schedule as it plays at No. 10 Texas A&M Thursday and then hosts No. 5 South Carolina Sunday.
“Texas A&M, they’re extremely tough. Coach Gary Blair, he is a legend, a living legend in this business, and they are extremely talented with a lot of depth,” Elzy said. “They look to push in transition, they’re hunting paint points, they play out in the ball screen as well as anybody in the country.
“We will definitely have our hands full, and obviously, Ciera Johnson in the paint, you know, she is a physical post that creates problems for us. Just going in, we will continue to focus on our transition defense, our one-on-one defense, keeping people out of the paint, and obviously we are working on our post defense to make sure that we’re prepared.”
Elzy said she learned her team was both tough and resilient in the overtime win at Mississippi State where Rhyne Howard dominated the fourth quarter and overtime to earn national player of the week honors.
“Not all of the calls went our way, we missed some layups, so, there were times in that game that we could’ve folded, but we hung in there, we faced adversity, and we just had players make big play, after big play, after big play, when we had to have it,” Elzy said.
“Obviously, Rhyne came up huge offensively for us, but let’s talk about KeKe McKinney, her leadership on the floor. She made some huge defensive stops, she hit open shots. Jazmine Massengill came in, turned the corner, hit some shots, hit a huge 3 when we needed it.
“I can go down the list. Olivia Owens, how about what she did in the paint, her post presence and her physicality? So what we can learn from that is, we’re still a work in progress, there are still a lot of things that we need to get better at, however, when our backs are against the wall, we are going to stick together and face adversity and never give up.”
