Vicky Graff Photo
Kentucky is 11-18 overall and only 4-11 in Southeastern Conference play going into Sunday’s regular-season final game at LSU, one of the nation’s better teams.
Kentucky lost two home games this week by a combined 78 points — 103-55 to No. 1 South Carolina and 75-45 to Mississippi. Kentucky has also lost by 28 points to Auburn, 17 to Texas A&M and Alabama, 27 to Arkansas, 22 to Vanderbilt, 18 to Tennessee and 62 in its first game with still unbeaten South Carolina.
Kentucky has been outscored 80.3 to 63.6 in 15 SEC games and is hitting only 37 percent from the field in those games. In all 28 games this season, UK is shooting just 39 percent from the field and 29 percent from 3.
Kentucky was 12-19 last season and only 2-14 in SEC play. The Cats were 19-12 overall, 8-8 SEC, during the 2021-22 season and in Elzy’s first season in 2020-21 after Matt Mitchell’s unexpected resignation UK went 18-9, 9-6 in conference play.
Mitchell’s first season at UK was 2007-08 when he went 17-16. The next season UK was 16-6. After that the Cats won 28, 25, 28, 30, 26, 24, 25 and 22 games before going 15-17 in the 2017-18 season. However, Kentucky responded with records of 25-8 each of the next two seasons before Mitchell resigned.
Clearly Kentucky has been on a huge downward tend in Elzy’s four seasons and that prompted at obvious question about how she felt about her future at UK after the lopsided loss to Ole Miss Thursday.
“I believe I am going to be back here. No one has told me any different. So, until then, my job is to coach this team and get us ready,” the always optimistic Elzy said. “Heading into the postseason, that is where my mind is.
“I’m sure I will meet with administration after the season, but as for right now I am the head coach here and I’m going to put my head down and grind and continue to work.”
The key words here were “as for right now I am the head coach” because Elzy is a competitor and knows winning is the name of the game. However, UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart is not one to give up on a coach easily and has not yet indicated a change will be coming.
Elzy talked after the Ole Miss about how much more physical the Rebels were and pulled off 18 rebounds. She talked about the team’s shooting slump and loss of confidence. The coach said her team was “flat defensively” to start the game losing by 48 points the previous game
“You know we want to win. And to finish strong you need some wins. I want to make sure we are getting max effort offensively and defensively. Selling out pride for this program. Which we have shown we can do so we need to get back to that obviously,” Elzy said.
“We’re going into a tough environment at LSU (Sunday) but it’s another game, it’s another opportunity before we head into the SEC Tournament. And then we always want to make a run in March.”
A run in March?
Sounds good but with poor shooting, rebounding and defense that has plagued UK during SEC play that seems very, very doubtful.
4 Responses
Kyra’s problem is that she can’t recruit. You might be the best coach on the planet, but you have to have good players! Joker Phillips 2.0….If there ever was a time to bring in great players it was when we won the SEC TOURNAMENT, & she got no one but complimentary players. Plus you have a 3-time SEC POY and you still can’t recruit.
Kentucky has two elite top 10 juniors in the nation in Z Johnson & Leah Macy & UK can’t even get a sniff from them. With the revitalized Memorial, the time is now to get an elite coach. I believe they could get Jeff Walz or a coach of his caliber.
Coaches have to be the most optimistic people in the world, at least publicly. I have yet to hear one say I imagine I’ll be out of a job at the end of the season. I guess I better put my house up for sale. I don’t know why in the world she thinks she deserves to be retained. Having said that, as long as the families and friends keep coming to the games, I guess Mitch will keep her around.
I hope she can turn it around, but I don’t see it happening. Used to get excited about the Lady Cats and keep up with them, but I haven’t done that for some time.
Hey Jim, there can’t be that many "families and friends." The difference between Mitchell’s teams and Elzy’s teams are night and day ! Getting stomped by Ole Miss at home ? Unacceptable !