About Kyra
Kyra was inducted in the Kentucky High School Basketball
Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame for her
storied career at Oldham County High School. During high
school, she was a two-time All-American selection by
Parade Magazine and Street & Smith and was recognized
as one of the best high school basketball players ever in
Kentucky. She led her Oldham County team to two KHSAA
regional titles and a semi-final appearance in the 1993
KHSAA Sweet Sixteen tournament. She scored 3,020
points and had 1,703 rebounds, 449 assists, and 516 steals
over her stellar career. An all-around athlete, Kyra also saw
success in cross country and track and field where she was
a state champion in the 400-meter dash as a junior.
Kyra’s success continued at the University of Tennessee. A four-year letterwinner, Elzy was a
member of two national championship teams in 1997 and 1998 and a national runner-up squad
in 2000. She won four SEC regular-season championships and three SEC Tournament titles at
Tennessee. Elzy was just the fifth freshman in Tennessee history to start her first game as a Lady
Vol. She earned the Holly Warlick Defensive Player of the Year award and the Unsung Hero award
and was selected to the USA Today All-Injury team that recognized athletes that competed while
overcoming injuries.
Elzy earned two degrees from Tennessee, a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s
degree in cultural studies and education with an emphasis in sports psychology. She was the first
Tennessee player to earn a master’s degree while still playing and earned UT Dean's List honors
each semester while in graduate school.
Prior to becoming an assistant coach at Kentucky, Elzy spent four years as an assistant coach at
Kansas. As the recruiting coordinator, she helped the Jayhawks land their first top-20 signing
class in 2007 and helped KU earn two postseason bids in her four seasons. Elzy also made a
coaching stop at Western Kentucky for two seasons, and she coordinated the recruiting efforts
for the Lady Toppers and also worked with the guards and handled individual workouts. The Lady
Toppers posted 20+ wins in both of her seasons at WKU, and in 2002-03 WKU won the Sun Belt
Conference championship and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
For eight seasons, Kyra served as an assistant coach and an associate head coach for the
Wildcats (2008-12, 2016-20), before being named the eighth head coach in program history in
2020.
In-between her two stints at Kentucky, Elzy spent
four years (2012-16) as an assistant coach and
associate head coach at her alma mater, Tennessee.
With the Lady Vols, she won two SEC regular season titles and one SEC tournament title, while
also helping Tennessee to three NCAA Elite Eights.
In March 2022, during Kyra’s second year as head
coach, Kentucky defeated No. 1 South Carolina to
win its first SEC tournament title since 1982, and she
is the fifth coach in league history to win the
tournament title in the first two years on the job.
Kyra produced Kentucky’s first ever No. 1 WNBA Draft
Pick when Rhyne Howard was selected first overall by the
Atlanta Dream in the 2022 WNBA draft. Additionally, Kyra
is the only coach in program history to lead her team to
back-to-back NCAA tournaments in her first two years at
the helm of the program, doing so in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
Elzy was hired to the Duke women's basketball staff in the summer of 2024 and serves as an assistant coach with the Blue Devils.
She is married to Dexter Lander – also a Kentucky native
– and the couple has one son, Jackson Miles.