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When UConn women's basketball star Azzi Fudd left Tampa last week as a National Champion, she had added her name to the annals of one of the most storied programs in all of college sports.
Fudd was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player, and her UConn Huskies dominated two No. 1 seeds that weekend to capture their 12th national title. She joined Husky legends like Breanna Stewart, Maya Moore, and Diana Taurasi as UConn players to have that honor.
But when she walked off the court after defeating South Carolina in the championship game, she also walked into a locker room surrounded by friends.
They’re the ones who made the grind of the season easier. They’re the ones she shared movie nights with at the team hotel, dinners in her teammates’ home cities, and the occasional post-title Mary J. Blige concert.
“Attitude is not something we deal with here, and I know a lot of other programs have issues, but we all get along, there's no drama,” Fudd said. “Being able to really enjoy your teammates both on and off the court, I think just strengthens the bond that we have on the court, and it shows.”
Fudd would have been a first-round pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Instead, she’s coming back to UConn for one more run. It wasn’t a decision she took lightly, but it is one that will come with its own unique pressures and opportunities.
Azzi Fudd and UConn went to a Mary J. Blige concert 🤩 pic.twitter.com/MC71l7RoDI
— WNBA Got Game (@wnbagotgame) April 9, 2025
Why Azzi Fudd is returning to UConn women’s basketball
Fudd is already a UConn immortal as the Final Four MOP. She could never play another game in Storrs and still end up in the vaunted Huskies of Honor on the wall at Gampel Pavilion.
But she admits it herself — she has not had much stability in college. As a freshman, she missed 11 games with a foot injury and was sick during the national title game, as well as against South Carolina. As a sophomore, she missed two months with a knee injury. Then, as a junior, she tore her ACL two weeks into the season. She didn’t return until a couple of weeks into this season, then promptly injured her knee again, leading her to miss two more weeks.
“I think having another year [to] just get my feet under me again, just [get] everything under control, and then just developing from a leadership standpoint, being the leader of the team, taking that kind of ownership and having that role will be really good for me,” Fudd said.
Before making her decision, Fudd weighed her options with her coaches and her family. She finally decided she had more work to do in Storrs.
“I want to get back to being comfortable with the ball in my hand,” Fudd noted. “I want to be a leader for the team.”
From her head coach’s perspective, the WNBA teams who will one day consider drafting her have yet to see what Fudd is truly capable of.
“Teams don't know all the potential you have and the real Azzi that they're getting,” Fudd recalled UConn head coach Geno Auriemma telling her.
Fudd is prepared to be UConn's leader
Fudd came to UConn a year after 2025 No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers. As one of the most electrifying players in the history of the women’s college game, Bueckers has been the face of the Huskies since 2020.
Every game, every media availability, every everything, Bueckers has been there.
Next year, that will be Fudd. And as close as the two players are, their personalities are different. Bueckers doesn’t seek the spotlight, but she’s comfortable in it. For Fudd, it has taken some time. As a freshman, she was often soft-spoken in front of the cameras in a way that didn’t match the All-American caliber player she had already proven herself to be.
Fudd admits she has learned from Bueckers how to handle being the face of UConn, the most popular team in women’s college basketball.
“She makes it look easy and fun. Just the way she handles it,” Fudd said, noting that even when Bueckers doesn’t want to do media, she fulfills her obligations.
How UConn Azzi Fudd plans to spend her summer
Like any college athlete loaded with NIL opportunities and about to hit the offseason, Fudd has a lot on her plate in the coming months. She’ll spend some time in Storrs but will also visit the DMV, where she’s from, and the Bay Area, where her mentor, Stephen Curry, works on his trade.
There’s a level of comfort she takes in working with Curry, someone who showed belief in her before she proved anything at the college level. He signed Fudd, then a freshman, to his SC30 brand in December 2021. It was an NIL deal that put some money in her pocket and also made Curry an invaluable resource in her rocky career.
“When I got hurt, he reached out and was amazing and incredibly helpful, and he wanted to help in any way he could,” Fudd said. “So I actually did my rehab with all of his people, his entire team. So I worked with his trainers, nutritionists, all the above. And he took care of that.”
Fudd was sure to mention multiple times that Curry didn’t have to. She would have been happy with an encouraging text after each injury but said she will “forever be grateful” that he took the extra step.
The hope is that the partnership will carry on into Fudd’s career in the WNBA, which will begin in about a year. If she has the career she’s hoping for, maybe one day she can pay it forward and mentor a young woman or man as they pursue pro basketball.
Fudd thought ahead and imagined herself one day working with a driven college student.
“You can see a lot about someone [by] their attention to detail and personality,” Fudd said. “It's got to be the right fit.”
For now, UConn is the right fit for Fudd. She’ll go into next year as one of the best players in the country, with another one of the best players in the country by her side in Sarah Strong. ESPN has the Huskies ranked third next year in its way-too-early rankings, making a return trip to the Final Four more than realistic; it’s an expectation. Like it always is at UConn. Fudd is used to it by now.
