Kyra Elzy

Biography

Kyra 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. Regarded as one of the country’s elite recruiters and player development coaches, Elzy has helped sign nine top-20 recruiting classes, including four top-10 classes, since 2007 and helped develop some of the best talent in the SEC over the last decade. In her first season with the Blue Devils, Elzy aided Duke to a 29-8 overall record (14-4 ACC), the ACC Tournament Championship and an appearance in the NCAA Elite Eight. Under her direct tutelage, Jadyn Donovan earned All-ACC Defensive Team honors while Oluchi Okananwa garnered ACC Tournament Most Valuable Player honors and a place on the ACC All-Tournament First Team. Elzy also helped coach Toby Fournier (2025 ACC Rookie of the Year, All-ACC First Team, ACC All-Freshman Team) and Ashlon Jackson (2025 All-ACC Second Team) to major conference accolades. Elzy came to Duke after previously serving as the head coach at the University of Kentucky from 2020-24. Overall, she spent 12 seasons on the UK sidelines, serving 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 her first two seasons at the helm in 2020-21 and 2021-22, Elzy became the first head coach in program history to lead Kentucky to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in their first couple of seasons. The 2021 Women’s Basketball Coaches A