Kentucky
ANALYSIS: Kentucky women’s basketball is struggling, how did it get here?
Simply put, times have been very dark for Kyra Elzy and Kentucky women’s basketball.
With loss after loss piling up and a prior 62-point defeat to No. 1 South Carolina, it seems that the once proud program has reached a new low.
With another loss in what has been a very hectic last two seasons, serious questions about the future of Elzy’s job are starting to be asked once again.
This is not the first time the status of Elzy’s position in Lexington has been under fire and, to provide a bit of context, the Kernel decided to take a step back in time and see where it all went wrong for the Kentucky native and former Lady Volunteer.
Elzy, while being from La Grange, Kentucky, played her college basketball down in Knoxville under legendary head coach Pat Summitt, where she would go on to win two of Summitt’s eight national championship victories.
After her playing days came to an end, Elzy was an assistant coach at Western Kentucky from 2002-04 where she would help the Hilltoppers to a Sun Belt Tournament triumph in 2003 before heading to Kansas for four seasons.
In 2008, Elzy would return to her home state of Kentucky as an assistant for her first stint in Lexington under Matthew Mitchell.
After two years in Lexington, Elzy would become the assistant head coach and would reach the Elite Eight in 2010 and 2012.
Elzy, however, in 2012, would travel back down 150 miles south to Knoxville as an assistant coach under Holly Warlick, reaching two Elite Eights before becoming an assistant head coach in 2015 and reaching another Elite Eight.
Following the end of the 2015-16 season, Elzy would come back north for her second stint in Lexington as an assistant head coach once again under Mitchell.
After four years, Coach Mitchell would retire after 13 seasons with the Wildcats in November 2020 following months of recovery after suffering a brain injury from an accident that happened in March of that year during a family vacation in Mexico, which put Elzy in as interim head coach.
Things would start smoothly for Elzy, starting the season 6-0 and having a top-ten AP ranking.
This would lead to Kentucky Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart announcing that he would remove the “interim” tag and name Elzy as the program’s 20th head coach. Kentucky would finish that season 18-9 and tied for fifth in the SEC and would be knocked out of the NCAA Tournament, losing to Iowa in the second round.
The next season, led by Dre’una Edwards and Kentucky legend Rhyne Howard, would be a very memorable one.
While the Cats finished the regular season at an underwhelming 15-11 record, going 8-8 in the SEC, Kentucky would defeat Mississippi State, No. 6 LSU and No. 18 Tennessee on the way to defeating No.1 South Carolina 64-62 in the SEC Tournament off an Edwards’ game winner to win the competition for just the second time in program history and first time in 40 years.
This success would largely cover up the disappointments of the season including Louisville native Erin Toller being dismissed from the team, which was done due to the former Sacred Heart star allegedly not meeting standards set by the program.
The next season, however, wouldn’t be so kind to Elzy.
After losing Howard to the WNBA, where she went first overall to the Atlanta Dream – the first women’s basketball player at UK to ever go No. 1 overall – Elzy would also lose Edwards to the transfer portal to Baylor. This would serve to be the first controversy for Elzy.
Edwards had already transferred in her college career as she came to Kentucky from Utah so she needed Elzy to sign a “No Participation Opportunity Form.” The problem was Edwards claimed in a social media post that Elzy – who had suspended Edwards the season prior – had refused to sign the waiver.
“I was hopeful Kentucky would sign off to let me compete this season, as they have told me before that they hope nothing but the best for me,” Edwards wrote. “But instead, they will not sign the waiver.”
Elzy would respond by explaining that Edwards would have been eligible if she had graduated from Kentucky and started her time at Baylor as a grad transfer, but this would not help her image as many would take the side of Edwards.
On the court, Kentucky would struggle as the Cats would win just two games in conference play as well as losing to the likes of Murray State for the first time since the 1970s, Florida Gulf Coast and South Carolina by nearly 30 before the SEC Tournament.
In the first round of the tournament with hopes of defending the SEC crown, Kentucky would upset Florida, but the victory would become overshadowed by a brawl that saw eight players ejected.
The Cats, however, would go on to surprise everyone by defeating Alabama by a convincing score of 71-58, but would fall to Tennessee in the quarterfinals.
To make matters worse for Elzy, Kentucky would lose an important piece in starting point guard Jada Walker to, you guessed it, Baylor.
This did not look good for Elzy at all as a key factor for the program would follow another huge piece to the same school, not to mention the previous controversy surrounding that star player’s transfer.
Now to this season, yet another departure has been announced from the program as Zennia Thomas was dismissed. The reason being? The same reason that Toller was dismissed: “not meeting standards.”
To the present day, in a season that has seen Kentucky without a true home venue, it might be safe to say the rest of the program hasn’t reached those standards recently either as the Cats currently find themselves 9-15 and 2-8 in the SEC with multiple blowout losses in that time.
With success being hard to find on the court in large part due to troubles off the court, serious questions have started to be asked of whether or not Elzy is the right answer for this program both in the present as well as into the future.
In order to silence the critics, results need to start swinging in the La Grange native’s favor because the honest truth is while coach Mitchell was leading this program to Elite Eights, Elzy can barely seem to muster a winning record.
Kentucky
Several people hurt in Western Kentucky Parkway multi-car accident, officials say
MUHLENBERG, Ky. (WFIE) – Kentucky officials says there are multiple people injured in a three-car accident on Western Kentucky Parkway.
According to a post made by the Central City Fire Department, three vehicles were involved in a crash between the 64 and 65 mile markers eastbound of the parkway.
They say both the eastbound and westbound lanes are closed at this time. The closure should last around 3 hours.
Two people were extricated from a vehicle. Four adults and three juveniles are being taken to the hospital. No update has been given on their conditions.
They say a mass casualty incident was declared, and Ohio County Fire and EMS were called to the scene due to the number of patients.
We will update you when we learn more.
Copyright 2025 WFIE. All rights reserved.
Kentucky
2027 top in-state prospect talks about his Kentucky unofficial visit on Tuesday
Kentucky’s recruiting efforts in the 2026 class have hit a current rough patch, but things are looking promising in the 2027 class, as the staff has already casted a very wide net in the class, with a number of top targets in the fold. As they’re continuing to pursue mostly national targets, a local star is now on the staff’s radar.
2027 in-state guard Braxton Keathley, one of the state’s top prospects even regardless of class, took an unofficial visit to Kentucky on Tuesday for the game against NC Central. Keathley is native of Martin County, KY, and has took the state by storm as he has really stuffed the stat sheet. Just recently, he dropped a triple-double of 34 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds last weekend.
The Kentucky staff has certainly seemed to take notice really quickly. He’s also getting plenty of other interest, too, including having frequent contact with Louisville, LSU, Purdue, South Carolina, and Florida State, plus offers from Eastern Kentucky, UT Martin, Ohio, and Bowling Green, among others. Keathley sat down with Kentucky Wildcats on SI to talk about his recent visit to Kentucky. What were his impressions of the staff? He shared a conversation he had with them before Tuesday’s game. He also had some interactions with others, too.
“They really talked about how well I scored it and how they’ve been hearing about me for a long time,” Keathley said of his conversation with the Kentucky staff. “One of the (Kentucky) assistants mentioned he had a coaching friend tell them that they better jump on me quick cause I was really good. I had several fans come up to me and take pictures. Jack Givens welcomed me and talked to me for a little bit and said he’s highly impressed with my game and plans on coming to a game soon. A couple of other UK players came up, they were really nice and said they been keeping up with me.”
As a Kentucky kid, Keathley says he been a fan of the Wildcats since he was little, even getting to train with Tyrese Maxey this summer, and he also had some great things to say about what he saw from fellow Kentucky natives and current Wildcats Trent Noah, Jasper Johnson, and Malachi Moreno. “I looked up to players like Tyler Herro, SGA, Tyrese Maxey, Devin Booker, Malik Monk and Reed Sheppard. I got lucky that I got to train with Maxey for a week in August,” Keathley said. “I saw Trent Noah last night having great energy and keeping a smile on his face during warmups. You could tell he loved every minute wearing that Kentucky uniform. He cares and it shows. I saw Jasper and Moreno warming up hard. The one thing about it, and my dad always told me, it’s a different place. You got to be special to play there and be willing to accept everything that comes with wearing that jersey.”
Interestingly enough, Keathley’s dad coached former Kentucky greats Anthony Epps and Wayne Turner after their time at Kentucky, so Keathley has a family history of being around all that comes with the passion of Kentucky basketball. What did Keathley’s dad learn about the two former Wildcats he got the privilege to coach? “He said they carried a chip on their shoulder and were great leaders always humble but tough. and I have to do the same.” Now, for Keathley, it’s about climbing the ranks nationally. “A couple (recruiting services) don’t have me ranked yet and that’s ok. I’m going to walk in the gym every night and know I outworked you and I’m going to outplay you,” he said. “I’m going to compete like every game is a championship. I’m going to to play with the same passion that the fans have. I’m always all in there’s no going back or in-between.”
Keathley has so much passion for his community in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, and he has plans of doing big things at Martin County. He also shared a message Trent Noah’s dad had for him during their interaction at Tuesday’s Kentucky game. “Something he said that really stuck out. ‘Us mountain people have got to stick together.’ He’s right, Eastern Kentucky has great people and basketball players. Kentucky basketball as whole, we got to stick together through the highs and lows. That’s what we do.”
That’s a great message from a parent of a current Wildcat who was in his shoes before, being a fellow native of that part of the state. The Kentucky staff is certainly going to keep an eye on him as he continues the impressive run he is on so far this season, because he just continues to catch more and more people’s attention with his play.
Kentucky
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie introduces legislation for U.S. to leave NATO – UPI.com
Dec. 10 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican serving a House district in Kentucky, introduced legislation for the United States to pull out of NATO.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, posted on X that she would be a co-sponsor of the Not a Trusted Organization Act, or NATO Act. Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced the same legislation in the Senate earlier this year.
“NATO is a Cold War relic,” Massie said in a statement Tuesday. “We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries.
“NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over 30 years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars.”
He added: “Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket – especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense.”
NATO was founded in 1949 by 12 members as a military alliance involving European nations, as well as the U.S. and Canada in North America. There are now 32 members, with Finland joining in 2023 and Sweden in 2024.
The NATO Act would prevent the use of U.S. taxpayer funds for NATO’s common budgets, including its civil budget, military budget and the Security Investment Program.
Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty allows nations to opt out.
“After the Treaty has been in force for 20 years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation,” the treaty reads.
During the last NATO summit in The Hague, the Netherlands, President Donald Trump told reporters he agrees with NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense treaty.
“I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said. “If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”
Article 5 was invoked for the first time after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, leading to NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan.
The Kentucky Republican, who calls himself a “fiscal hawk” and a “constitutional conservative,” has been at odds with Trump on several issues, including fiscal spending, foreign policy/war powers, government surveillance and transparency.
Trump has also been critical of NATO.
During his 2016 election campaign, Trump called the alliance “obsolete.”
He urged nations to spend at least 3.5% of gross domestic product on core defense needs by 2035.
In June, NATO allies agreed to a new defense spending guideline to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense and security by 2035.
Five nations were above 3% in 2024: Poland at 4.12%, Estonia at 3.43%, U.S. at 3.38%, Latvia at 3.15% and Greece at 3.08%. In last is Spain with 1.28% though Iceland has no armed forces and Sweden wasn’t listed.
Some Republican senators want stronger involvement in the alliance, including Joni Ernst of Iowa and Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Wicker is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
For passage, a House majority is needed, but 60 of 100 votes in the Senate to break the filibuster and then a majority vote. Trump could also veto the bill.
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